And this added page—was from the poor little widow. After leaving St. Mihiel, which was threatened, she reached Paris just in time to be greeted by the abominable news. She was bearing up in the face of the terrible shock. I had dreaded collapse and prostration for her. And now no one could help admiring her, shining with resolute determination in her affliction—two little children to bring up—the sense of her duties! How I should have liked to go to her and take her hands and say: "I mourn with you, my sister. If I live, dispose of me as you will!"
What a transport of delight I was thrown into by these appearances of the baggage-master. Jeannine, with divine consideration, had written to me again without waiting for my reply, which might be delayed, she said, by so many chances. In future she intended to write me a line almost every day. A line! That meant long, affectionate epistles. Two reached me at once, then three together, the second time.
With a modesty to which I mutely paid homage, Jeannine avoided all allusions to the new state of affairs which had actually risen between us. But I read her passionate infatuation between the lines, in the burning contents of these letters. Scraps of them still float in my memory. She spoke of herself and of me, of my people and her people—our people. She touched lightly upon every subject, which at that time affected us like so many millions of our brothers. Did she not recall as if by chance various of those high problems which had formed the subject of our smiling discussions at Ballaigues—self-sacrifice, abnegation, disinterested attachment to such and such an idea or being? Did I deign now to bow before this sublime foolishness, she wondered? She did not insist upon it. She knew that she had easily carried her point. I developed our motives of inspiration, and returned them to her. They were all secretly contained—and she felt it, the sweet creature—in this one, we loved each other.
Love! I dared to look this prodigious word in the face. The vision of promised joy kept me up. When once the war was over, the country saved,—in her eyes and in mine, everything else must give way to that—I pictured our reunion, our brief betrothal, and the day, oh God, the day when we should kneel side by side—What could it matter whatever separated me from that time? Toil and suffering, the spilling of my blood, what was it all? A moderate advance when such wondrous radiance filled the horizon.
I had not given up my habit of analysis. An attitude of mind which stays with one, I believe, till death, when once adopted. I sometimes wondered at my youthful enthusiasm. Was I a captive? Caught up in the whirlwind? I who had thought myself safely in shelter. I asked myself whether this ardour were not partially fictitious or at all events ephemeral? How unlike me it was—I, who was so much imbued with the idea of my cold-bloodedness and stoicism—to become infatuated about this child, and that too when I was no longer in her presence, when I had been able to live beside her for weeks without being in the least perturbed or inflamed. Such reflections drew me as the bushes on the river-bank draw an abandoned boat drifting with the current. It was only a brief fluctuation. I gave one or two powerful strokes with the oars, and regained the open river, where the rapid stream carried me away.
It was true, I admitted, that a month or two ago, when I had been face to face with her, I was incapable of love, or of any exalted feelings. But was I alive at that time? No. No. A secret affliction robbed my destiny of all true zest. Let me revel to-day in the supreme instinct which was reviving in me! Was this instinct folly? It was quite possible. Especially this passion which had suddenly blossomed in such abnormal circumstances? But what was there more beautiful than a beautiful folly? If, after having been hurled, by the brutality of circumstances, from my quietude into the sphere where the fate of primitive beings was under discussion—what more natural than that I should be born anew to their fire and rapture. What delight there was in recurring to an artless frame of mind, what pride at the same time in retaining a certain elevation of thought. Love could no longer mean for me mere desire. I magnificently mingled metaphysical reveries with it. I flattered myself on having attained perfect poise—on being philosopher enough to give my fever an august flavour—man enough to quiver at it.
In my replies to Jeannine I was as reserved as she was as regarded our deepest feelings. Like her I poured myself out in passionate meditations on the present circumstances. Any treatment seemed to suit them, from arch frivolity to lyricism. I, who formerly used to be so particular about each letter being written in an accurate, and indeed elegant style, now scribbled away at page after page, just as they occurred to me. I did not even read them over! A soldier to his fiancée! The slips must take care of themselves. And I took a kind of pride in baring my soul, which no longer hid any evil recesses....