"In the first place, my dear friend, permit me to believe that you do not profess your sentiment because it is fine, nor does it last with you because you find it beautiful. You find your sentiment beautiful because it is yours. You look upon it as lasting indefinitely because your eyes are incapable of looking as far as its end; that is all. In your case there is no constraint, no submission to any law, aesthetic or moral. You feel that way. Your friend Clotilde loves in her way, and she finds it beautiful, believe me."
"All the same! All the same, there is an almost general consent to consider that love superior which is adorned with sentiment, and does not consent to be short-lived."
"Yes; and this is in conformity with the morality which has ruled us thus far. This morality is all delicacy. But, reduced to this degree of purity, will it suffice to keep alive a struggle as ardent as the one which we are now witnessing, for the possession of a part of the outside of the world, or even for the supremacy of certain ideas? It must concede provisionally a preponderance to material, mortal life, since it is evident that the morality of the just will triumph only on condition that it has force on its side. Do you follow me, my poor friend? All this is very dry. But this is my way of telling you that these crystalline sentiments, that are an 'ornament' in ordinary times, become a luxury in our age of iron and fire. Luxury is no longer permissible. The time has come when all refinements must give way to a very stern reality. As you have been very well told: 'We are not our own.' General consent? It should be given to the best good of the cause which unites us all, and carries us all away with itself. Forgive me, my very dear friend. I am going to commit a rudeness which gives me pain—and you know that only the extremity of an unheard-of calamity could bring me to that—yes, your sentiment, with its persistence, is beautiful in itself, most beautiful; but we are no longer at leisure to look at things 'in themselves.' Well, if your friend Clotilde had lost her husband in your place and at the same time, and if she were to-day the wife of another who had made her a mother, for example, we ought really to hold her case in higher esteem than yours!"
A sob choked Odette. They were walking along the Champs-Elysées. She sought for a chair and sank upon it.
"I am not vexed with you," she said as soon as she could speak; "something in my inmost being understands you— It has already been said to me— But it is hard!"
"The time is exceptional."
[XXIX]
Odette spent much of her time in consoling poor Rose. Her husband's death had passed almost unnoticed. But other and very dramatic deaths had also passed unnoticed. When men were brought home in fragments it made a sensation, but once they were dead the sad equality of the earth obscured their memory. Indescribable episodes had attained such a character, and had reached such numbers, that people hardly dared speak of them. Minds were saturated and automatically closed against any new sensation. Many were unable to endure any story of the war, whether in the newspapers or in books. Odette recalled to mind the impression which the wounded had formerly made. They were already saying "formerly" when speaking of the present war! Now there were wounded everywhere. It was rather the unscathed men upon whom one looked as if to say to them: "See here, you! what are you doing with your arms, with your legs?" Certain persons, with a strong revulsion of the instinct of self-preservation, refused, like Clotilde, even to think about the war; others, on the other hand, buried themselves in it with passionate intensity.
Mme. de Blauve, who had become fond of Odette and occasionally came to see her, now came to announce the marriage of her eldest daughter. She told the news almost as if saying: "At last!" as if it were the case of an old maid whom she had despaired of marrying off. Mlle. de Blauve was barely sixteen, she was attractive and endowed with much charm, had been most carefully educated, and promised to be really beautiful. She was to marry a wounded sublieutenant.
"Ah!" said Odette; "does she love him?"