At the gate we met M. Mairieux. Raymonde hastened to tell him where we had been. Somewhat astonished to see us together, he gazed at us attentively. The least favourable sign of happiness on his daughter’s face reflected itself on his own. He understood her expression so thoroughly that he was not to be deceived by appearances.
From her open window Mme. Mairieux caught sight of us.
“Ah! there are the lovers,” she cried.
* * *
I suggested to Raymonde that we make a little journey. The closer intimacy of travel helps sometimes to heal the distress of hearts that have been worn by concealed and daily irritations. Did I hope myself that she would refuse? My project was to return to Paris for a week or two, and then move on to some fashionable watering place. Although the season was already advanced (it was the beginning of July) some affairs were still taking place in the Bois de Boulogne and at Saint-Cloud. One noticed foreigners in attendance especially, and I liked their imaginative novelty and prestige.
Whether she accepted the idea of living away from me in order the better to protect her threatened love from me, or whether her already weakened condition would no longer permit her to travel, I do not know; at any rate she refused to accompany me.
“You are right to go,” she added. “The Sleeping Woods are lonely for your tastes. And as for me, I am so tired—you must let me rest a little. I will rejoin you shortly, as soon as I am able.”
She no longer believed herself capable of detaching me so completely from all my accustomed ways of living. Her confidence in herself was dead, but her confidence in me, fashioned by her love, was more slow in yielding. My departure would be almost a relief. I believe that I should have tormented her more by remaining with her than by going. Our cruelty grows quickly when its victim never complains of the blows.
Through the glass windows of Armenonville, in pleasant company, I saw again the decorative beauty of long allées filled with leisurely strolling people. This sort of thing was better suited to my state of mind. When we ourselves are arid, uninhabited nature vexes us; as a servant of our social pleasures, it becomes endurable.
From Paris I went in pursuit of it in fashionable resorts. Mme. de Saunois had gone off to the Engadine, and I installed myself at Waldhaus, near the lake of Sylvaplana, at the opening of the Fex valley. Raymonde, either in better health or more anxious, offered to join me. I evaded summoning her on the pretext of an immediate return, which I put off time after time. I was determined to ramble about, I was running after adventures for which I required my liberty. How was she, in her ignorance, to suspect them?