And they kept smiling without taking heed of what had occurred. They knew only that they had _it_, that they possessed _it_ and that _it belonged_ to them. It? What? Nothing. We feel rich this evening!... On getting home they looked at themselves carefully in the mirror just as one looks at a friend, with loving eyes. They said to themselves: "That gaze of his, of hers, was fixed on _you_." They went to bed early, overcome--but wherefore?--by a delicious weariness. While they undressed they kept thinking:
"What"s best of all at present is, that there"s a tomorrow."
TOMORROW!... Those who come after us will have some difficulty in understanding what silent despair and weariness of spirit without grounds that word evoked during the fourth year of the war.... Oh, such a weariness! So many times had hopes been destroyed! Hundreds of tomorrows just like yesterday and today followed on, each similarly devoted to emptiness and waiting--to waiting for emptiness. Time no longer ran. The year was like a river Styx which encircles life with the circuit of its black and greasy waters, with its somber, watery, silky flood that seems no longer to move. Tomorrow? Tomorrow is dead.
In the hearts of these children Tomorrow was resuscitated from the grave.
Tomorrow saw them seated again near the fountain. And tomorrows followed one another. The fine weather favored these very brief meetings, every day a little less brief. Each one brought a lunch in order to have the pleasure of exchanging. Pierre now waited at the door of the Museum. He wanted to see her art works. Although she was not proud of them she did not make him beg at all before showing them. They were reproductions of famous paintings in miniature, or portions of paintings, a group, a figure, a bust. Not too disagreeable at the first glance but extremely loose in drawing. Here and there quite true and pretty touches; but right alongside the mistakes of a pupil, exhibiting not merely the most elementary ignorance but a reckless ease perfectly careless of what anyone might think.--"Enough! Good enough the way they are!"--Luce recited the names of the pictures copied. Pierre knew them too well. His face was quite drawn from his discomfiture. Luce felt that he was not pleased; but she summoned all her courage to show him everything--and this one too.... Woof!... it was the ugliest one she had! She kept up her mocking smile which was directed to her own address as well as to Pierre"s; but she would not confess to herself a pinch of vexation.
Pierre hardened his lips in order not to speak. But at last it was too much for him. She showed him a copy of a Florentine Raphael.
"But these are not its colors!" said he.
"Oh, well, that wouldn"t be surprising," said she. "I didn"t go and look at it. I took a photo."
"And didn"t anybody object?"
"Who? My clients? They haven"t been to look at it either.... And besides, even if they had seen it, they don"t look so narrowly! The red, the green, the blue--they only see the fire in it. Sometimes I copy the original in colors, but I change the colors.... See here, for instance, this one...." (An angel by Murillo).
"Do you find it"s better?"
"No, but it amused me.... And then, it"s easier.... And besides, it"s all the same to me. The essential thing is that this will sell...."
At this last piece of boasting she stopped, took the color sketches from him and burst out laughing.
"Ha! So they"re even uglier than you had expected?"
He said, greatly annoyed:
"But why, why do you make things like these?"
She examined his upset visage with a kindly smile of maternal irony; this dear little _bourgeois_ for whom everything had been so easy and who could not conceive that one must make concessions for....
He asked once more:
"Why? Tell me, why?"
(He was quite crestfallen, as if it was he who was the botcher in paint!... Dear little boy! She would have liked to kiss him ... very properly, on his forehead!)
She answered gently:
"Why, in order to live."
He was quite overcome. He had never dreamed of it.
"Life is complicated," she went on in a light and mocking tone. "In the first place it is necessary to eat, and then to eat every day. In the evening one has dined. It"s necessary to begin again the next day. And then it"s necessary to dress oneself. Dress oneself completely, body, head, hands, feet. That"s so far as clothing is concerned! And then pay for it all. For everything. Life, it"s just paying."
For the first time he saw what had escaped the shortsightedness of his love: the modest fur in some places worn, the shoes somewhat the worse for wear, the traces of embarra.s.sed means which the natural elegance of a little Parisian woman makes one forget. And his heart contracted within him.
"Ah! couldn"t I be allowed, couldn"t I be permitted to help you?"
She moved away from him a bit and reddened:
"No, no," she returned, much upset, "there"s no question of that....
Never!... I have no need...."
"But it would make me so happy!"
"No.... Nothing more to be said about that. Or we shall not be friends any more...."
"We are friends, then?"
"Yes. That"s to say, if you are so still after you have seen these horrible daubs?"
"Surely, surely! It isn"t your fault."
"But do they trouble you?"
"Oh, yes."
She laughed out contentedly.
"That makes you laugh, naughty girl!"
"No, it"s not being naughty. You do not understand."
"Then why do you laugh?"
"I shan"t tell you."
(She was thinking: "Love! how kind you are to be troubled because I have done something that is ugly!")
She went on:
"You are so kind. Thank you."
(He looked at her with astonished eyes.)
"Don"t try to understand," said she, tapping him softly on his hand....
"There, let"s talk of something else...."
"Yes. But one word more.... Still, I could wish to know.... Tell me (and don"t be hurt).... Are you at the present moment a bit strapped?"
"No, no, I told you that just now, because there have been now and then hard times. But now it goes much better. Mama has found a situation where she is well paid."