At bottom, however, there was the invisible stamp of the wear and tear exacted by these long years of merciless toil. Her fortieth year was approaching. Life had passed and she had not realized it. An obscure feeling of revolt was rising within her. All this lost life, this life without love, without action, without luxury, without any rich joy. . . . And all that she had missed she had been so completely fitted to enjoy!
What was the use of thinking of it? It was too late now!
Too late?
SUMMER
[PART THREE]
[XXXVI]
Solange had the small, well-rounded, rustic face of a Gothic Madonna, an oldish, infantile air, laughing, wrinkled eyes, a pretty nose, a delicate mouth, a rather heavy chin, fine skin and a ruddy complexion. She liked to discuss serious thoughts in a serious tone, very serious, contrasting comically with her kind, humorous face, which tried hard not to be so; but her words hurried along for fear of losing the thread of her sober ideas; and sometimes she actually did stop in mid-course with a void in her mind: "What was it I meant to say?"
Her auditors seldom whispered a reply, for they scarcely listened to her. But she did not irritate them, for Solange was not one of those people who hold forth and insist upon your following their insipid discourse. She had no pride and was ready to apologize affectionately for having bored you. But incapable as she was by nature of grasping an idea, she had a naïve aspiration for thought and an immense good will. Nothing very much came of it: her thoughts never quite arrived. The grave books, Plato, Guyau, Fouillée, yawned at the same page for weeks or months; and the great, beautiful projects, idealistic, altruistic—works of social aid or new systems of education—were intellectual toys that she soon forgot in their corners and under the furniture till the next chance brought them to her attention again. A good little bourgeoise, gentle, amiable, pretty, sensible, well-balanced, with a dash of pedantry, unconstrained, droll, who, without posing, imagined that she had intellectual needs and really had to talk about the ideal and many other things, all on the same plane, calm, tidy, well-dressed, polite, innocent and a nobody.
Younger than Annette by three or four years, she had once felt for her one of those paradoxical attractions that harmless natures feel for those that are dangerous. It is true that these phenomena usually manifest themselves at a distance. In fact, she had approached Annette very little at school, where they were in different classes. It was only because she saw her as she came and went and had picked up some echoes from the older girls that little Solange had conceived for her elder a timid fascination. Annette had had no suspicion of it; and since then Solange had completely forgotten her. She had married, and she was happy. Not to have been happy, she would have had to have a monster for a husband—or a passionate man. Victor Mouton-Chevallier was, heaven be praised, neither one nor the other. A sculptor by vocation, he was not tormented by inspiration, for he had an income and a rich placidity. He had no lack of taste, but he felt no pressing need of translating into his art anything different from what had already been done by this, that or the other of his illustrious confrères of all ages. And as he was innocent of ambition, as he was free from illiberal feelings (from others too, perhaps), he enjoyed an unmixed satisfaction in finding himself so well, so completely, expressed—at least, so he flattered himself in believing—by Michael Angelo, by Rodin, by Bourdelle, or by the smaller gentry; for he was eclectic and found his good things everywhere. In this happy state he would certainly not have made the effort to produce anything himself if this had not added to his pleasure one savor the more: the flattering illusion that he belonged to the family. He was willing to accept the tender respect that he felt called upon to show for the heroes of art and their misfortunes. He shared in these latter—from afar; and he forced his jovial face to assume an air of austere melancholy as he listened to his wife discreetly playing the Sonata Pathétique on the piano—for Beethoven also belonged to the family. Solange had fully responded to his domestic needs. A tranquil affection, an easy kindness, a gentle, uniform, complacent humor, an indoor idealism that did not risk itself outside when it was windy or muddy, a propensity for admiring that renders life so much more comfortable!—in short, in a word that says everything, security was their true unconfessed ideal. Their circumstances, both of fortune and of heart, permitted them to have this. They were sheltered from material cares, and there was no fear that they would introduce trouble into their household.