Annette, still agitated, repressed a smile. Her mind was in a tumult, and she found difficulty in calming it. She felt at the same time the loathsomeness and the absurdity of the scene. She had not forgiven him, and she was ready to pity the man who was accusing himself so pathetically beside her. He continued to flounder. She listened to him with bitterness, compassion, irony. He struggled to explain "this filthy madness that passes through your body." . . . Yes, this madness, she knew it, although it was not the time to tell him so. But he looked so wretched that, in spite of herself, she said to him, "I know. One is mad sometimes. What's done is done."
They continued on their way, without speaking, their hearts heavy, sad and embarrassed. Just as they were arriving at the spot where they had left Sylvie, Annette made a gesture as if she were about to hold out her hand to Leopold. But instead of doing so, she said, "I've forgotten it."
He was relieved, though he was still troubled. Like a schoolboy caught in some misdemeanor, he asked, "You won't say anything about it?"
Annette gave him a little pitying smile.
No, she said nothing. But at the first glance the sharp eye of Sylvie had seen it all. She asked no questions. They spoke of other things. And while all three, to hide their thoughts, made a great parade of chattering all the way home, Sylvie observed the two others.
From that day forward Annette and Leopold were never again alone together. The jealous one was always watching; Annette too was on her guard. In spite of herself she allowed her distrust to be viable. And Leopold, who was hurt, brooded over his unconfessed bitterness.
[XX]
Annette's eyes were opened. She could no longer remain undistrustful of herself and others. She could no longer pass along, laughing, as she had done before, heedless, because she did not seek them, of the desires she aroused. Society being as it is, customs being as they are, her situation as a single woman, young and free, not only exposed her to pursuit, but legitimized it. No one could believe that she had freed herself, in the boldest fashion, in order to shut herself up afterwards in a widowhood the constancy of which was without an object. She imagined she had changed with maternity, and no doubt maternity was a great flame. But another flame still burned in her. She tried to forget it, because she was afraid of it; and she imagined that no one saw it. But this was not so; in spite of her, the fire of love burned on. And other people, if not she, were in danger of being its victims. Leopold's adventure had shown her this. It was hideous. She was revolted by it. In the disillusioned eyes of one who is not in love, the act of love seems a grotesque or disgusting bestiality. As Annette saw it, Leopold's attempt was both. But Annette did not have a calm conscience. She had fanned these desires. She remembered her thoughtless coquetries, her arts, the provocations she had given him. What had driven her into them? That repressed force, that inner fire which she was obliged to foster or stifle. Stifle it one cannot, one should not! It is the sunlight of life. Without it, everything is plunged in shadow. But at least it should not consume that to which it ought to give life, like the chariot that was given into the hands of Phaëton. Let it follow its regular course through the sky! Marriage then? After having so long avoided it, the perception of the dangers that menaced her led her to tell herself that a marriage of affection and esteem, of calm sympathy, would be a bulwark against the demons of the heart and a protection against pursuit from without. The more she convinced herself (and everything conspired to convince her: her material and moral security, the attraction of a home and the solicitations of her heart), the less resistance she opposed to Julien's supplications. In order to yield to them, she went over all the reasons she had for loving him. But she did not wait for these reasons in order to love him. For already there had begun within her that construction of the mind which creates an exalted vision of the chosen one. Julien had preceded her in this, but as she had a richer and more passionate nature she had soon outdistanced him.
No longer on her guard, surrendering to the ardor of her frank nature, she used none of those artifices with which a cleverer woman masks her defeat when her heart is captured and she allows people to believe that she is still mistress of it. Annette had made a gift of hers. She told Julien. And from that very moment Julien began to be uneasy.
He knew very little about women. They fascinated him and disconcerted him. Rather than know them he preferred to judge them. He idealized some, he condemned others. Towards those who fell into neither of the two categories he remained indifferent. Very young men—and Julien, owing to the slightness of his experience, had remained very young—are always hasty in their judgments. As they are full of themselves and their desires, they seek in others only for what they wish to find. Whether on the moral or the carnal side, naïve persons are like roués in one respect: when they love they are always thinking of themselves and never of the woman. They refuse to see that she exists outside of them. Love is the one test that can teach them. It teaches the few who are capable of learning—but generally to their cost and that of their partners; for when at last they know it is too late. The naïve astonishment, old as the ages, that bewails the irreducible duality which is the bitter fruit of love, that disappointed dream of unity, is the usual result of this initial misunderstanding. For what does "love" mean if it is not "loving someone else"? Without possessing the egoism of Roger Brissot, Julien, through ignorance, had no less difficulty in getting outside of himself; and he had a still more limited view of the feminine universe. He needed to be led prudently by the hand.