[XXXIII]
Annette, pushed aside by her son, became as hard as he. When the heart is deliberately closed to love, the mind, freed by the absence of the object that nourishes its affection, is driven to satisfy its intellectual hunger and its need of action. She worked all day, read in the evening, and at night slept soundly. Marc spitefully envied and despised the health of this vigorous woman, the faculty she seemed to have for escaping self-torment.
Annette, however, suffered from the privation of not being able to share her thoughts with a companion. She filled the void by work, by actively forgetting. . . . But work for work's sake is itself so empty! . . . And upon whom can one spend those unused forces one feels in oneself?
Sacrifice! . . . That need of sacrifice! . . . Annette found it everywhere about her, often pathetic, sometimes absurd. For as a good observer she incessantly explored faces and souls every day and all day long; she distracted herself from her own troubles by throwing herself into those of others. Perhaps curiosity prevailed over pity during this period when her heart was petrified (as she thought) by the spectacle of so much suffering, and especially so many defeats and abdications.
Among women who are struggling as she was to wrest from society the means of existence, how many are broken, far less by the harshness of things than by their own weakness and abnegation! Almost all are exploited by some affection and cannot exist without being exploited. One would say that this is their only reason for living—the reason for which they die. . . .
One of them sacrifices herself to an old mother or an egotistical father. Another, to a vulgar husband or some man who deceives her. Another, another—myself!—to a child who does not love her, who will forget her, who will betray her to-morrow perhaps. . . . Well, what does it matter? If I find a joy in being betrayed by him, imposed upon, forgotten? "If it pleases me to be beaten!" Ah, derision, trickery! . . . And the others envy you, those who have no one to whom to sacrifice themselves! They marry a dog, a cat, a bird. Each one has her idol. If you must have one at any price, God would serve better. He, at least, amounts to something. . . . I too have my God, my unknown God, my hidden truth, and this passion that drives me on to seek it. . . . Deceptive, perhaps, like the others. But I shall not know it till I have reached it. And if this is deceptive, at least it is elevated and worth the trouble.
Annette revolted against the absurdity of some sacrifices. No, nature does not wish the best to be sacrificed to the most unworthy. And if she did wish it, why should I submit to it? But she does not wish it! She wishes one to sacrifice oneself to the best, to the grandest, to the strongest.
Sacrifice at any price, to the worst as to the best, perhaps even to the worst by preference, because the sacrifice is thus most complete, sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice—yes, that is conformable enough to the idea people have of God . . . Credo quia absurdum . . . Like master, like man! This God is indeed he who rests on the Seventh Day, finding that which he has made is well made. If one had listened to him, the chariot of man would have stopped at the first turn of the wheel. All the progress of the world is made against his will . . . Fiat! We shall drive the chariot on. It may crush us, but at least we wish it to go forward.
[XXXIV]
A tragic incident increased Annette's aversion to these immolations that seemed to her so pointless—immolations of those who were worth more to those who were worthless.