FOR eight years Gab and I have lived together on terms of the greatest intimacy, like two sisters. Gab is much younger than I and regards me with deep affection.
Often I look at her curiously. She seems to read what is in my face and replies to my mute interrogation.
“You cannot understand me. You are Saxon and I am Latin.”
When I survey her I find myself thinking as she thinks, and I wonder if there exists a way of comprehending that we Anglo-Saxons do not possess. Gab is deeply serious. She has long, black eyes which seem to slumber perpetually. When she walks, despite her youth, she proceeds with slow and protracted steps, which give you an impression that she must be of a serious and meditative nature.
When I became acquainted with her she was living in a dark little apartment, furnished in Hindu style, where in her black velvet costume she looked like some Byzantine princess. Jean Aicard, the poet, said one day that her voice is of velvet, her skin and locks are of velvet, her eyes are of velvet and her name ought to be Velours. If one could compare her to a living creature a boa constrictor would be most appropriate, for her movements are like those of a snake. There is nothing sinuous, nothing rampant about them, but the ensemble of her motions suggests the suppleness of the young adder.
I knew Gab for at least two years before it entered into my head that she was fond of me. She was always so calm, so silent, so undemonstrative, so unlike any other human being that only a supernatural personality, it seemed, would ever be able to understand her.
Her eyes and her hair are just alike, deep black and very brilliant. In her presence people never know for certain whether she is looking at them or not. Yet nothing about them escapes her, and through her half-closed eyes she penetrates to the very depths of their souls. She is neither tall nor slight, neither plump nor thin. Her skin is like alabaster, her abundant locks are parted in the middle and brought together in a knot behind the head, just as our grandmothers did their hair. Her teeth are small, regular and white as pearls. Her nose is straight and graceful. Her face is full and her head is so large that she never finds quite hair enough to dress it with.
When Gab was a baby she had as playmates a donkey, a pony and an army of lead soldiers, including Napoleon in his various aspects, with horses, rifles and wooden cannon. When I became acquainted with her she still had with her the nurse who had taken her mother’s place. This woman told me that Gab used to make her play horse while she took the part of Napoleon, until the poor nurse staggered with fatigue. She told me again that Gab was so shy that when her mother received a visitor, if the child were in the drawing-room and there was no way of escape, the little one would hide herself behind a curtain and would not budge until the intruder went away. Her mother was so much concerned with what she called the child’s timidity that she was unwilling to force her in any way. Gab subsequently has explained to me that she was not afraid and was not timid, but the truth was she could not endure certain people and that she did not wish to be obliged to see those who annoyed her.
She is just the same to-day. For years whenever a visitor came in by one door she would go out by another, and it made no difference whether the person came for a long call or for only a single word. At lunch or at dinner nothing could, and nothing can, induce Gab to meet people.
