"But I should like, in exchange for the gift of mutual affection, that each should preserve the right to live according to his own soul, to walk in his own way, to seek his own truth, to secure, if need be, his own field of activity,—to carry out, in a word, the proper law of his own spiritual life, and not sacrifice himself to the law of another, even the dearest person of all: for no one has the right to immolate another's soul, or his own for the sake of another. It is a crime."
"That's all very fine, my dear friend," said Marcel, "but for me, you know, the soul is a little beyond my depth. Perhaps it may mean more to Roger. But I am afraid that in that case he will not understand it in the same fashion. I can't quite see the Brissots, in their family circle, conceiving the possibility of any spiritual law save that of the political and private fortunes of the Brissots."
"By the way," said Annette, smiling, "to-morrow I'm going to their place in Burgundy to spend two or three weeks."
"Well," remarked Marcel, "that will be a case of confronting their idealism with your own. For they are great idealists, they too! After all, perhaps I am mistaken. At bottom you are admirably made to get along together."
"Don't dare me!" said Annette. "Perhaps I shall come back an accomplished Brissot."
"Dear me! That wouldn't be so cheerful! . . . No, no, I beg of you! . . . Brissot, or not Brissot, preserve us Annette!"
"Alas! I should like to lose her, but I can't, I'm afraid," Annette replied.
He said good-bye, kissing her hand.
"It's a pity, all the same! . . ."
He left. Annette, too, told herself that it was a pity, but not in the same sense that Marcel meant. It was in vain that he saw her clearly; he understood her no more than did Roger, who did not see her at all. To understand her required more "religious" souls—more religiously free—than those of almost all these young Frenchmen. Those who are religious, are so in the tradition of Catholicism, which means obedience and the renunciation of intellectual liberty (especially in the case of a woman). And those whose minds are free rarely suspect the profound needs of the soul.