But they did introduce Annette. If they had known the elements this Frau Sorge carried within her, they would have been dreadfully upset. But they did not know. They were like innocent children playing with an explosive; they would have had an attack of nerves if they had guessed what they held in their hands. But guessing nothing, after having their own sport, they went and laid it down gently, without intending any harm, in the garden of a friend. . . . They laid Annette down in the garden of the Villards.
[XXXVII]
When Solange discovered Annette again, she also discovered in herself once more the old feeling she had had for her: she fell in love with her. Like everyone else, she knew about Annette's "irregular" life. But in her goodness—a goodness without depth, but also without prudery—she did not think any the worse of her. It must be said that she did not understand it very well. With her indulgent disposition, which was the most sympathetic side of her amiable nature, she supposed that Annette had undoubtedly been victimized, or perhaps that she had had her own serious reason for acting as she had done. In any case, it concerned only herself; and she was indignant at public opinion. After seeing her friend again, she made inquiries about her and learned of her courage and self-abnegation; she conceived the most exaggerated admiration for her. This was one of those periodic infatuations that left her, for a time, no room for any other feeling. Her husband, whom she fed with her enthusiasms, found in this one an opportunity for melting over Annette's nobility of heart, and that of his wife, and his own as well. (Is there anything that enables us to enjoy our own moral beauty more than to be stirred by that of a fellow-creature?) Husband and wife tried to outbid each other in their noble intentions towards Annette. They could not leave her alone, destitute of sympathy, that poor woman, the victim of social injustice! The Mouton-Chevalliers set out to find Annette, climbing all the way up to her fifth floor. They surprised her in the act of doing her housework. This struck them as all the more touching; and her coldness seemed to them an admirable dignity. They did not leave till they had won Annette's promise to come and dine with them with her little boy, en famille, the following evening.
Annette was not very much pleased by this renewed friendship. She saw how insipid it was. Her years of moral solitude had given her a savage instinct. It was not good to avoid people too much; one found it hard to get into touch with them again; one became aware of an odor of corruption under the flowers. In the quiet household of the Mouton-Chevalliers, Annette was not at her ease; their conjugal happiness did not make her envious. "Too mild, too mild, too mild!" as somebody says in Molière. "No, thank you! Not for me!". . . She had reached a time when she needed the harsh winds of life. . . .
Well, she ought to have been satisfied! The mild Solange was going to see that she got them.
[XXXVIII]
Annette was dressing to go out to dinner. This evening she was to meet at the Mouton-Chevalliers those friends of whom she was sick of hearing from Solange—Doctor Villard, a fashionable surgeon with a rather garish reputation, and his brilliant young wife. She was troubled. "What if I shouldn't go?" She half thought of sending a line to excuse herself. But Marc, who was bored with being alone with his mother, was delighted at any pretext for going out. Annette did not want to deprive him of this distraction. Besides, she knew she was absurd. "What's the matter? What's troubling you?". . . It was like a presentiment of evil. . . . Silly! The rational spirit that dwelt in her, side by side with the instincts that took no account of it, made her shrug her shoulders. She finished her toilet and, taking her son's arm, set out for Solange's.
The superstitious instinct was not long in taking its revenge. It is no miracle, indeed, when a presentiment is realized. A presentiment is a predisposition towards what one is afraid of feeling. Consequently, if it comes to pass, there is nothing magical about it. It is a sort of divining-rod; as it approaches a spring, a shiver warns it that the water is eating its way under the surface.
On the threshold of the drawing-room, Annette felt the warning; but she knit her brows, and as soon as she entered the room she was reassured. Even before Solange had presented him to her, she had made up her mind at a glance about Philippe Villard: he was antipathetic to her. She had a feeling of relief.
Philippe was not handsome. He was small, thick-set, with a brow that bulged above the eyes, a strong jaw, a short, pointed beard, a steely blue glance. Very much master of himself, he was cold in a courteous, commanding way. Seated beside Annette at table, he followed two conversations: the general discussion that Solange was carrying on in her desultory manner and that which, in the intervals, he held with his neighbor. In both he had the same brief, precise, trenchant way of talking. Never a hesitation, either for a word or an idea. The more Annette listened, the more hostile she felt towards him. She replied, concealing herself under a rather dry and distant indifference. He did not seem to attach great importance to what she said. No doubt he was judging her from the silly eulogies he had heard from Solange. He was barely polite. This did not surprise anyone: they were used to his abrupt ways. But it irritated Annette to have to endure them. She observed him beside her, without appearing to see him, feature by feature; and she could find nothing about him that pleased her. But the total impression was not the total of her impressions of details; and when, without difficulty, she reached the end of her examination, she felt uneasy again. A movement of the hand, a wrinkling of the face. . . . She was afraid of him. And she thought, "Above everything in the world, he mustn't see into me!"