In the early morning, especially when the air is keen and freshened by the dew, these slow strolls under the trees should have been exquisite. The leaves were not yet thick enough to keep the sun from filtering through the branches and throwing its gold on the footpaths, but they had already that effect of young verdure that is so delightful. The paths were carpeted with grass, and, since our footfalls made no sound upon it, we were often surprised by almost touching a woodpecker or a chaffinch, who, believing himself master in his own house, flew off in safe and leisurely flight. Oftentimes a hare crossed the avenue in front of us with little bounds.
Yes, these strolls would have been exquisite but for the skill I employed to spoil them! As I had tormented Raymonde about her parents, so now I tormented her about the hope that filled her with a joy that was all but sacred. She saw in it the continuation of our cherished love, the palpable thrill of our union, the living bond of our united bodies and souls. I saw only the inconvenience, and I showed my irritation and nervousness over it. I appreciate to-day that this new affection which preceded its object, far from diminishing it, broadened, strengthened and extended her love as a wife. I did not recognise it then, and I spurred myself on to detect in her beforehand some cause of estrangement.
When I was silent too long, she would say to me with an adorable flush of colour:
“Let us talk about him.”
And then, correcting herself, in order not to be unfair, she would add:
“Or, of her.”
She pictured it as an image of our happiness that we should see grow, whose youth, one day, should prolong ours in its decline. She smiled as she thought of him and saw him. These first maternal smiles, bestowed on one who does not yet exist, seem to give a woman the sweetness, freshness and purity of a young girl again. Barren love is ignorant of many forms of beauty. The madonnas have a deeper beauty, but not less innocent, not less melodious than the young maid who carries in herself the Springtime. But these first smiles, whose charm I understand so well now, I questioned then, as I remember, in jealousy, not in admiration. So new were they to me that I did not know how to gather them. Thus we permit the simple emotions that are the ornament of life to escape from it because we seek our happiness in ourselves instead of finding it on the faces of others. While I made our love complicated by trying to confine it to my personal satisfactions, Raymonde gave to it quite naturally her primitive capacity for acceptation, her radiance, her creative splendour.
“He will look like you,” she assured me.
“How can we tell?”
“Why should he not look like you? My child is my thought, and my thought is you.”