"It"s certainly changed since yesterday."
"Isn"t it allowable to change one"s taste?"
"No, not when one"s a friend."
"Luce, do my portrait!"
"Well, well, now; his portrait!"
"Why, it"s very serious. I"m as good as those idiots...."
She squeezed his arm in an unthinking burst:
"Darling!"
"What was that you said?"
"I didn"t say anything."
"I heard you all right."
"Well then, keep it for yourself!"
"No, I shan"t keep it. I"ll give it back to you double.... Darling!...
Darling! You"ll do my portrait, won"t you? It"s settled?"
"Have you a photo?"
"No, I have not."
"Then what do you expect? I can"t paint you in the street, I suppose."
"You told me that at home you were alone almost every day."
"Yes, the days mama works at the factory.... But I don"t dare...."
"You are afraid, then, that we shall be seen?"
"No, that"s not the reason. We have no neighbors."
"Well, then, what is it you"re afraid of?"
She did not reply.
They were come to the square before the tramway station. Although all about them were people who were waiting, they were hardly to be seen, the fog continued to isolate the little couple. She evaded his eyes. He took her two hands and said tenderly:
"My darling, don"t be afraid...."
She lifted her eyes and they gazed at each other. Their eyes were so loyal!
"I trust you," said she.
She closed her eyes. She felt that she was sacred to him.
They let go hands. The tram was about to start. Pierre"s gaze questioned Luce.
"What day?" he demanded.
"Thursday," she replied. "Come about two."
At the moment of parting she regained her roguish smile; she whispered in his ear:
"And you must bring your photo just the same. I am not strong enough to paint without the photo.... Yes, yes, I know you have some, you naughty little humbug."
OUT beyond the Malakoff. Streets like broken teeth separated by vague regions losing themselves in a dubious kind of country-side where among boarded enclosures blossom the cabins of ragpickers. The gray dull sky is lying low over the colorless ground whose thin edges smoke with the fog. The air is chill. The house easy to find: there are only three of them on one side of the road. The last of the three; it has no neighbor across the street. It has but one story with a little courtyard which is surrounded by a picket fence; two or three starveling trees, a square patch of kitchen garden under the snow.
Pierre has made no noise on entering; the snow deadens his steps. But the curtains of the ground floor are in motion; and when he reaches the door, the door opens and Luce is on the threshold. In the half light of the hall they say good day in a choking voice, and she ushers him into the first apartment which serves as dining-room. There it is that she works: her easel is installed near the window. At first they do not know what to say to one another: both have thought over this visit altogether too much beforehand; none of the speeches they had prepared is able to come forth; and they talk in a halfvoice, although there is n.o.body else in the house--and it"s just for that reason. They stay seated at some distance from each other with their arms rigid; and he has not even thrown back the collar of his cloak. They chat about the cold weather and the hours of the tramcars. They are unhappy to feel themselves so silly.
At last she makes an effort and asks if he has brought the photographs, and scarcely has he taken them from his pocket when both pluck up a spirit. These pictures are the intermediaries over whose heads the chat revives; for now the two are not entirely alone; there are eyes that look at you and they are not embarra.s.sing. Pierre has had the clever idea (there was really no roguishness in it) to bring all his photographs, from the age of three; there was one that showed him in a little skirt. Luce laughed with pleasure; she spoke to the photo in comical baby talk. Can there be anything more delightful to a woman than to see the picture of the person she loves when he was quite small? She cradles, she rocks him in her thoughts, she gives him the breast; and she is even not so far from the dream that she has given him birth. And besides (nor does she dupe herself at all) it forms a convenient pretext to say to the infant what she cannot force herself to say to the grown-up.--When he asks which one of the photographs she prefers, she says without hesitating:
"The dear little codger...."
How serious he looks, already! Almost more serious than today. Certainly if Luce dared to look (and just here she does dare) in order to make comparisons with the Pierre of today, she would see in his eyes an expression of joy and infantile gayety that does not appear in the infant: for the eyes of this infant, this little _bourgeois_ under a bell gla.s.s, are birds in a cage that lack sunlight; and the sunlight has come, hasn"t it, Luce?...
In his turn he asks to see photos of Luce. She exhibits a little girl of six with a big plait who is squeezing a little dog in her arms; and as she sees it again she thinks mischievously that in that period she loved no less fervently nor very differently; whatever heart she possessed she gave it even then to her dog; it was Pierre already, while waiting till he arrived. Also she showed a young miss of thirteen or fourteen who twisted her neck with a coquettish and a somewhat pretentious air; luckily there was always there at the corners of the mouth that roguish little smile which appeared to say:
"You know, I"m just amusing myself; I don"t taken myself seriously."
Now they had completely forgotten their former embarra.s.sment.
She set herself to sketching-in the portrait. Since he must not budge one bit any more, nor talk except with the tips of his lips, she it was who made almost all the conversation, all by herself. Instinct told her that silence was dangerous. And as it happens with sincere persons who talk at some length, she came quickly to the point of confiding to him the intimate affairs of her life and those of her family which she did not have the slightest intention of recounting. She heard herself speak with astonishment; but there was no way of returning to solid ground; the very silence of Pierre was like a declivity down which the stream glided....
She recited the facts of her infant life in the provinces. She came from Touraine. Her mother belonging to a well-to-do family of the solid _bourgeoisie_ became infatuated with a tutor, the son of a farmer. The _bourgeois_ family opposed the marriage; but the two lovers were obstinate; the young girl had waited until she was of age in order to send out the legal summons to her family. After the marriage her people would not recognize her. The young couple lived through years of affection and hard fare. The husband wore himself out at his task and sickness arrived. The wife accepted this further burden courageously; she worked for two. Her parents, obstinately cherishing their wounded pride, refused to do anything to come to his a.s.sistance. The sick man died a few months before the outbreak of the war. And the two women did not try to renew connection with the mother"s family. The latter would have welcomed the young girl if she had made any advances; she would have been received like a _mea culpa_ condoning the action of her mother. But the family might wait! Rather eat stones for breakfast!
Pierre was amazed at the hard heartedness of these _bourgeois_ parents.
Luce did not find it extraordinary.
"Don"t you believe there are a great many people like that? Not wicked.
No, I am sure that my grandparents are not, and even believe that it pained them not to say to us: "Come back!" But their self-respect had been mortified too much. And self-love among these people, there"s nothing else that is so great. It is stronger than all the rest. When one has done them wrong it is not merely the wrong that one has done them; there is _the Wrong_; the others are wrong and they themselves are right. And so, without being cruel (no, really, they are not) they would let you die near them at a slow fire rather than concede that perhaps after all they were not right. Oh, they are not the only ones! One meets with many others!... Say, am I mistaken? Aren"t they just like that?"
Pierre pondered. He was excited. For he was thinking:
"Why, yes. That is the way they are...."