If, during that time, I resumed my interest in work, which I had too long neglected, I owe it to Raymonde and her influence. The new life upon which I had entered demanded that I should not be content even with happy idleness. In order that the harmony created by our love continue, all our faculties must be employed, our entire personality must develop in right directions. A single love, if it aspires to be lasting, if it wishes to be definitive, considers the balance in our natures, prevents us from scattering our forces and restores them rather to our command.
By a gift of happy flattery Raymonde impelled me to make use of gifts which she recognised in me. I collected my notes of a journey I had once made through Northern India. I published them, and expressed a desire to dedicate them to her; but she could not bear the idea of having her name in print.
“It would be an invasion of our privacy,” she objected quite obstinately.
I also modelled a few statuettes: a Group of Girls Announcing Spring, and a Young Girl at the Fountain, inspired by my engagement and that lost fountain in the forest which the autumn leaves had covered.
It often happens that our most disinterested and normal resolutions turn, against us. My work, which was also hers, was destined to be harmful to her. People gave my modelling unmerited praise. Criticism willingly caresses geniuses whom it believes to be short-lived: they can not be a burden; their course will soon be run, and consequently they may be praised without fear. A reputation at the Salons was bestowed upon me at once, and I was too sensible of the advantages which renown brings not to accept it with alacrity.
Deceived by myself, I was astonished that Raymonde did not exhibit more satisfaction. Our first disagreement came from the offer of an illustrated magazine which, following a small exhibition where only amateurs of art could have seen it, asked permission to reproduce the Young Girl at the Fountain. Radiant with delight, I informed my wife, and was surprised at her repugnance to the idea.
“One would think you were displeased,” I said.
“Refuse permission: I beg you to,” was her reply.
“But why?”
“Did I not pose for the statue?” she demanded.