One Sunday morning, a few weeks before this, she had been sitting half-clad before her dressing-table. She took a long time over her toilet on Sunday, for on other days she was obliged to go out so early. She was weary with the accumulated fatigue of the week. The child, who had just got up, had slipped out of the room to find his aunt. He was very much interested in the wedding, and he amused Sylvie by the reflexions which, as a man of experience, he expressed on this subject. Leopold petted him; as a way of courting Sylvie, he courted her little lap-dog. And Marc, flattered and proud of his importance, passed all his time in the apartment below, remaining with his mother very reluctantly. Annette was bitterly disheartened by this. But this morning her weariness swept away her sadness and even mingled with it a secret feeling that lightened it. She sighed, however, from habit. She was feeling that mingled fatigue and enjoyment which came from knowing that she could, thank heaven, stretch out at full length on this Sunday without having to stir. . . . Sunday! In former days Annette had never dreamed how precious it was.
"How weary I am, how weary I am! How good it is not to budge! If I were sitting in the most uncomfortable position, leaning on my elbow in some tiresome way, I shouldn't move. I could sleep for a thousand years. There is a charm in this that holds you. One's afraid of breaking it. Let's not stir. How good it is!"
She saw through the window, on the roof opposite, a stream of smoke coming from the baker's chimney. It was carried off by the wind, in spirals, bright and gay, stretching out, rolling, running and dancing against the blue sky. Annette's eyes laughed and her spirit danced in the meadows of the air—borne along in the wake of the mad arabesques. All the weight of the earth had slipped away from her. Her spirit felt naked in the wind and the sun. Annette sang in a low voice. . . . And suddenly there appeared before her the enraptured eyes of a young man who had looked at her the day before in an omnibus. She did not know him, and in all probability she would never see him again. But this look, which she had surprised as she suddenly turned her head—he did not think he was being seen—confessed so naïvely how charmed he was that ever since a fresh joy had remained in her heart. She pretended to herself that she did not know the cause of this; but as her mirror returned to her the image of her smile, she saw herself with the eyes of the one who would love her some day. . . . What has become of you, my worries? I can still hear them murmuring fitfully, far, far away.
"Enough, enough! No more of this. One must be reasonable."
There was nothing new in what Annette said to herself. Twenty times she had said it. But although she did as she said, she expected nothing from it. Success does not always depend on being reasonable. Reason is a good counsellor, but counsellors do not guarantee payment. And the heart is only convinced by the reasons of the heart.
She had no lack of these now. Annette was willing to see how absurd were the demands made by her maternal love. But if she was ready to do this, it was because other stifled aspirations had risen to the surface. She could no longer deny them; she no longer wished to do so. And once she had given them this tacit acquiescence, Annette felt liberated. The voice of her reawakened youth said to her, "Nothing is lost. You still have the right to be happy. Your life is just beginning."
The world revived. Everything had a savor again. Even on dull days she had her luminous moments of escape. Annette formed no plans for the future. She abandoned herself to the happiness, whatever it might be, of a future that she had recaptured. Yes, yes, she was young, young as the young year. . . . A whole life before her, . . . There would never be enough of it.
[XVII]
One of those gay, precocious months of February that have so much charm in Paris. Spring is not yet in the sky or in the heart, but everything is pure, pure light, the limpid joy of a child that has awakened. The beautiful dawn of the year is beginning, and before the birds have reappeared one hears them coming. As from the summit of a tower lost in the clear sky, one sees them, clouds of wings, swarms of swallows. They are coming, they are crossing the seas. And already some of them are singing in my heart.
Like every healthy being, Annette loved all the seasons. In adapting herself to them, she shared in their secret energies. Those of the springtime exalted her.