This last spectacle alone seemed in Odette's eyes to merit consideration. She had lived the greater part of the time among the wounded, she had also lived in Paris with the social world. "All is over," she would say to herself; "nothing will heal all this; it is mere mummery to ape the life of other days; all that is blotted out; La Villaumer was right when he said: 'Men have suffered too much.'"
It was in this very place—there, opposite, at the hotel—that she had become acquainted with Jean. They were pleased with one another at the first glance, carried out of themselves, even. She remembered how mad with love she had been in those garden walks, between those tennis-screens, on that beach, and along that terrace which now she was treading overwhelmed with despair, a despair that she could not name, greater than herself, greater than the broad horizon of the sea, greater than all things.
She had forgotten nothing. She recalled all the preludes of marriage, then those first vacations, their dual solitude in the midst of the throng; kisses exchanged on these dunes, along these roadsides, in some charming farm orchard, or on certain evenings before the fairylike spectacle of the phosphorescent sea; she remembered that room in the Hôtel de Normandie where he had left her a few days before the 2d of August! And she recalled to mind the beautiful sky of that day, and the tocsin pealing from all the church-towers of the countryside, and the rolling of the drum, and the young men raising their hats. How many of them were alive to-day?
[XVIII]
She had hardly finished luncheon when she heard the jingling of the little bell at the wooden gate of her garden. Mme. de Calouas came in.
Mme. de Calouas found Odette surrounded by photographs of Jean. They were on the walls, the chimneypiece, the tables, the desk, the piano. Odette had taken the opportunity of her journey to carry to the photographer every film that she possessed; she had had them enlarged, and she was surrounded by Jean as if Jean had become a whole people; she saw him in every room of her cottage and in all places; she felt somewhat tranquil only when she could see him. If she seldom or never spoke of him elsewhere, as soon as she returned home she belonged only to him. She talked to him, consulted him, and heard the replies which, in accordance with his character, he would have made her to-day, if he had lived, if he had known what was taking place.
Mme. de Calouas looked about her at all these likenesses.
Mme. de Calouas was not among the number of hospital nurses who had been rewarded by the epidemic medal, although she had not absented herself for forty-eight hours since the outbreak of the war, and though her position in the hospital was a most important one; but neglect of this sort was either indifferent to her or it flattered her pride. She belonged to a family of which every member professed absolute indifference to rewards, especially to any that might come from the public powers, and this although it was the tradition of the family to addict themselves constantly to the highest duties. The magistrates among them had retired some thirty-five years previously; the officers remained fixed in the rank of captain. In the Morbihan the expression "the Captains de Calouas" had become a common locution. At the outbreak of the war "the Captains de Calouas" had shown themselves to be men of the old-fashioned kind who considered that the finest part one can play in the face of the enemy is to be killed by him. Their unanimous and hardy bravery had, indeed, crowned nearly every one of them with the halo of sacrifice. Those with whom death would have absolutely nothing to do had this time risen in rank, and had received the cross after a succession of actions and for exceptional valor even amidst so many astonishing deeds. Of seven of them, only one was left, recently named lieutenant-colonel, with an artificial arm and a damaged lung.
Mme. de Calouas excused herself for coming so early, but said that she had felt an irresistible desire to talk freely with a friend in whom she had discerned "a choice soul."
"In the sort of convent in which we lived so long side by side," she said, "I consider myself somewhat as a mother to you, if you will permit me to say so, seeing that I had the responsibility of opening its door to you. Will you let me talk to you as a mother?"