He asserted it with an energy that had no need of encouragement. Joy, anger, whims, he protested them loudly in every key. Annette, who was a novice in motherhood and a scandalously bad educator, found it all charming; she did not have the strength to resist these tyrannical appeals. She would get up ten times during the night rather than hear him groan. And from dawn to dark she let him cling to her breast like a greedy leech. The child could not have been happier, but it was not very good for her.
When she saw her sister again in the spring, Sylvie found her thinner, and she was disturbed. Annette still seemed to be just as happy, but her expression had become a little feverish; the tears came into her eyes at any affectionate word. She admitted that she did not sleep enough, that she did not know how to get proper help, and she felt inadequate before the practical difficulties that arose in regard to the care and health of the child. She said all this, affecting to laugh at her faint-heartedness, but the fine assurance she had felt at the outset had vanished. She was startled to discover that she was not as robust as she had thought; as she had never been ill, she had not known the limits of her strength, and she believed she could use it uncalculatingly. She realized now that these limits were narrow and that she could not pass them with impunity. What a fragile thing life is! At other times this realization would not have affected her. But now that her life was double, and someone else, even more fragile than herself, depended upon this fragile thing. . . . Heavens, what would happen if she disappeared? During her sleepless nights Annette turned this fear over in her mind many a time. . . . She listened to her sleeping child, and at the least change in its respiration, a slightly quicker breath, a cry or even a silence, her own heart stopped beating. And as soon as this anxiety had once entered it took up its abode in her. Annette no longer knew the solemn, carefree calm of the night hours when the motionless body and the thought-free mind, dreaming without sleeping, floated like water-flowers, motionless, on the nocturnal pond. An Elysian quietude, in which the grace that is granted one is only felt by the heart after it has been lost. Henceforth, the watching soul is distrustful every moment. In the most confident moments apprehension lies concealed.
Sylvie was not mistaken. Under Annette's valiant smile, as she joked about her weakness, she perceived how physically disordered she was, perceived her animal need of joining her own kind again. She decided that Annette should leave her retreat and come back and settle in some house in the country a few hours from Paris where Sylvie could see her almost every day and the news of her return would not become known. Annette had no objection, but she insisted upon returning boldly to her own house in Paris. She would not hear of any opposition to this. In vain Sylvie pointed out to her that it would be most unwise, that her peace of mind would be endangered. Annette was immovable. Her pride would not endure anything that looked like running away in the face of public opinion. During the happy year when she had been brooding over the child, she had not thought of public opinion. She had lived alone with her happiness; there was no room for a third person. For several months her happiness had not diminished; she would have liked the world to know of it, and it was painful to her to admit to herself that she must hide it. The constant thought of this had hurt her. What, did she have to conceal as something shameful this jewel that was all her pride? She would seem to be denying it!
"Deny you, my treasure!" She kissed him passionately. "I should not have run away. I should have forced people to accept you from the very beginning. But no more of this secrecy! I shall show you to people and say, 'Look at my beautiful baby! You other mothers haven't anything like him, have you?'"
[V]
She returned to Paris and settled there. The daughter of Raoul Rivière knew very well that it would not be so easy to induce people to accept her situation. But although she had inherited her father's contemptuous attitude towards the world, she had not acquired from him the habit of yielding outwardly to its prejudices in order to escape from it all the more effectively. She meant to face it down and get the better of it.
Her first experience was favorable enough. In Annette's absence her old Aunt Victorine had remained in charge of the house, as she had done now for many years. This diminutive person of more than sixty had a fresh complexion, unwrinkled cheeks and tight little ringlets close about her face. Calm, gentle, inoffensive, excessively timid, she had kept herself sheltered from everything that might have disturbed her. From her childhood Annette had always seen this Dame Trot of an aunt about the house, looking after all the bothersome domestic duties, seeing that everything was clean and comfortable and watching over the kitchen (for she was an epicure), playing the part of an old family servant for whom, just because she was part of the household furniture, nobody put himself out. Her opinions had no weight; as a matter of fact, she had none. In the course of the thirty years she had passed under her brother's roof Aunt Victorine might have seen and heard strange things. But she had seen nothing, heard nothing. It would have required force to make her see what she did not wish to see. Raoul had taken no precautions. In his circle of intimates he called her the deaf-mute of his seraglio. He made fun of her to her face, fooled her, was rude to her, called her a blockhead, made her cry, and then coaxed her back into a good humor, gave her a noisy smack on both cheeks and induced her to coddle him as if he had been a big boy. She had remembered him as a man with a heart of gold, indeed as a saint—which would have amused him very much in his grave if, for a Raoul Rivière, a tireless lover of the superficial things of this world, anything that lay beneath had been worth so much as a smile.
It would not have been difficult for Annette to impress upon Aunt Victorine's eyes an equally advantageous image of her personality. She had inherited, along with the house, the worship which the old family tabby rendered to the master. The only thing that was necessary was not to disturb her illusions. Annette hesitated a long time before making up her mind to do so. She had kept her aunt in ignorance of her adventure. In leaving Paris she had used her health and her desire to travel as a pretext. Far as this was from corresponding with the facts, her aunt had appeared to believe it; she was not inquisitive and shrank from hearing anything that might upset her. But, sooner or later, she had to know the truth. Sylvie, after the child's birth, undertook to inform her. The poor woman was completely taken aback. It was very hard for her to understand the situation; she had never been brought face to face with anything of the kind. She sent Annette several frantic letters, so incoherent that Annette might have thought—at her age people have no pity—that Aunt Victorine herself had just had the baby. She consoled her as best she could. Sylvie was convinced that the old lady would leave the house. But to leave the house was the last thought that could have entered Aunt Victorine's head. For the rest, her mind was thrown into the most inextricable confusion. She was quite incapable of giving any advice, for advice was what she herself needed. The only thing she could do was to lament. But one does not live by lamentation, and, as one has to live in spite of everything, she ended by discovering in Annette's misfortune a trial sent by heaven. She was beginning to get used to it, in the absence of her niece, whose removal kept the disgraceful occurrence at a distance, when Annette announced that she was coming back.
Annette was deeply moved on her return home. Sylvie had come to the station to meet her. Aunt Victorine could not make up her mind to do this; and, when she heard the house-door opening, she precipitately mounted the stairs which she had half descended and ran and shut herself up in her room. There Annette found her in tears. Her aunt, throwing her arms about her, repeated, "My poor child! How is it possible? How is it possible?"
Annette, more disturbed than she wished to appear, assumed an air of assurance and said bluntly, with a laugh, "There will be time enough to explain it all. Let's go down to dinner now."