The pianist next door, still devoted to her Chopin, which she performed in a remarkable manner, was beginning the First Nocturne, the one that contains that phrase of lamentation, heartrending in its sober scheme and its sustained phrasing, without outcry or burst of passion, leaving the soul to the lasting sense of human woe.
"Oh, listen—listen!"
The pianist was accompanying herself with her grave, finely cadenced voice, following without words the sinuous course of the thrice-repeated utterance of sorrow. Odette began to sob; her nerves were unstrung by the apparent return to things of former days, while yet acutely conscious of the dreadful present.
"I must give up this apartment, after all," she said between her sobs.
"Yes, you will have to," replied Simone; "you would be overwhelmed with your sense of loss."
"For that matter I must give up everything."
"Everything? What more, do tell me!"
"Myself! See, I cannot delude myself longer."
"My poor Odette! You are hardly four days out of your hospital, and you go to pieces! We are only kept up by the presence of those who have suffered a thousand times more than we. You can't imagine what it is for me that my Pierrot has miraculously escaped death, with his body half destroyed. It is he who saves me from unhappiness. Those who have looked death in the face and yet have returned to life find it beautiful, whatever it is, and their wonder at it spreads to all around them."
"Yes, yes. I have felt that. If I had my poor Jean, even all broken to pieces, I should think only of the joy of having him safe. But I have him no longer, and the past draws me, at times, as if some one much stronger than I were taking me by the arms and drawing me backward with irresistible power. Do you remember Isadora dancing among her children and throwing flowers in one of the motives of the ballet of "Armida"? And that great fool Antoine Laloire behind us, crying: 'When one has seen that one may well say, "Thank you," to God and close one's eyes forever!' He had no idea how well he was speaking. They say he had a splendid death."