Annette gave too much. She was irresistible. Julien no longer concealed his passion. And Annette—a little late—recognized that she was in danger.
When she saw love rising within her, she threw up a feeble defence; she tried not to take Julien's feelings seriously. But she did not believe herself, and all she did was to make Julien more importunate. He became pathetic.
Then she was seized with fear. She besought him not to love her, to let them remain good friends.
"Why?" he asked. "Why?"
She did not want to say. She had an instinctive fear of love; she remembered what she had suffered through it, and an intuition warned her of what she would have to suffer again. She summoned it and she drove it away from her; she desired it and she fled from it. Julien's entreaties she resisted sincerely, and in the bottom of her heart she prayed that her adversary might conquer her; resistance.
The combat would have dragged on if a certain event had not hastened the issue.
[XIX]
With her sister's husband Annette was on terms of the frankest friendship. This good soul, for all his slight vulgarity, lacked neither heart nor integrity. Annette respected him, and Leopold treated her with a rather ceremonious consideration. Ever since their first meetings he had gathered that she belonged to a different species from his and Sylvie's; she intimidated him. He was all the more grateful for the kindness she showed him. At the time when he was paying court to Sylvie, she had been his ally; more than once she had come to his aid when he was exposed to the ridicule of his fiancée, who was too sure of her power not to abuse it. Later she had even discreetly interposed in misunderstandings in the household, or when Sylvie yielded to sudden whims, crotchets and deviltries, now and then, escaping from her own vexations by vexing her husband. Leopold, who did not understand such things, would come and tell his troubles to Annette, who undertook to bring Sylvie back to reason. He had even gone so far as to confide to his sister-in-law more than one matter which he had not mentioned to his wife. Sylvie was not unaware of this, and she teased Annette, who took it gaily. Everything was natural and frank among the three. Leopold had never complained of the place held in his home by his wife's sister and the little boy, though they were often rather in the way; he thought, in fact, that Sylvie did not do enough to help Annette, whose courage he admired; and he spoiled the child. Annette, who knew through Sylvie what Leopold thought, was grateful to him.
The period of Sylvie's pregnancy was not, for those about her, especially the husband, a happy time. Frequent discords drove Leopold and his consort apart. Not that Sylvie meant to get along without him. She thought very little about her maternity and was unwilling to make any change in her manner of living. But he did think about it. Those long months of gestation were far from being for her what they had been for Annette, an endless dream of languid happiness that was finished too soon. Sylvie was not made to brood on dreams. She was impatient and had no intention of giving up one of her duties, one of her rights or one of her pleasures: she overtaxed herself. Her health was affected by her nervous state, and her character did not gain by it. When one is tormented, one is glad to torment others. Sylvie, who was uncomfortable, was indignant because her husband was not; and she undertook to make him so. She harassed him with her teasing, malicious, perpetually changing moods. She was even (unexpectedly enough) jealously amorous, though this did not prevent her from abusing him. There were days when he did not know which way to turn.
Annette was at hand to receive his lamentations. He would climb up to her floor, complaining; she would listen to him patiently, and she found a way to make him laugh at his little misfortunes. These meetings, as they went on, established between them a sort of complicity, for they had so many feelings in common. And sometimes, in Sylvie's presence, they would exchange a malicious glance. Perfectly honest, both of them, they took no precautions and abandoned themselves to a familiarity which, if it was innocent, was not entirely harmless. Annette did not dream that there was any risk, and these friendly coquetries amused her. Leopold was captivated by them; he asked for nothing better. He had been attracted for a long time by the radiant force of joy that issued from her. Just at that moment Annette was discovering Julien's love, and it troubled her deliciously. The rest of the world was all a haze. When she had just seen Julien, and Leopold was talking to her, she listened to Leopold and replied to him, but it was to Julien that she was smiling. Leopold had no means of guessing this.