She wished us to give him a name, and wanted, herself, that of her father, but she dared not suggest it. I often changed the conversation, yet what more beautiful topic can there be than the certainty that the future is holding for us the continuation of our race?
My wife remarked my coldness and lack of enthusiasm. She talked less to me in consequence of that which constantly preoccupied her. And then, with an effort which I now understand, she spoke again to me of it. Already forgetful of herself, she was willing to make herself less agreeable to me if in that way she could induce me to bestow a little of my love on the one who was to come, who was beginning to live within her.
However, her lassitude and the change in her figure increased. It all seemed to threaten blows at my pleasure, attacks on her beauty,—I saw this in it instead of the patience and gentle pity and sense of protection which ennoble a woman’s love. I did not altogether conceal my boredom. One evening, as we were returning from the woods a little later than usual, where I had been for a part of the way inattentive, she stopped, very weary, before passing through the gate.
“I am afraid,” she said.
I looked about us; there was no noise, no movement to cause her fear. I thought that perhaps the shadows and the silence had affected her.
“There is nothing, Raymonde.”
“No,” she agreed, “there is nothing.”
I let the matter drop, satisfied. I did not understand that she needed to be reassured. Her fear was not of external things; those she understood and trusted. Already, her fear was of me.
* * *
During my previous visits in the Sleeping Woods, I had had scarcely a word to say to the farmers and workmen whom I met on my estate. They were my superintendent’s affair, not mine; such people were total strangers to me. During our engagement, I had been much surprised at the looks of understanding exchanged between them and Raymonde when I accompanied her. Later, love traced around us its circle of isolation and no one addressed us, but through its social aspect, marriage made us more accessible. On our return from Italy, the tenants and day labourers whom we encountered, never failed to salute my wife. They called her “Our Lady.” She was “Our Lady of the Woods,” and at first it amused me. But they told her of the deaths and the births, obscure stories of the village or the household, bad crops, or the sickness of the live stock, and I saw myself put aside. They consulted her and let me alone.