The address was in the letters. Annette went to the Boulevard du Maine. It was afternoon; Sylvie was at the work-shop. Annette did not dare to hunt her out there. She waited for a few days, and then went back one evening after dinner. Sylvie had not come in, or else she had already gone out again; no one was quite sure. Annette, who had been keyed up by nervous impatience for a whole day preceding each attempt, returned home disappointed; and a secret cowardice advised her to give it up. But she was one of those who never give up anything on which they have once decided; they are all the less willing to yield when the obstacle persists, or when they are afraid of what may happen.
She went again, one day at the end of May, towards nine in the evening. And this time she was told that Sylvie was at home. Six flights. She climbed too quickly, for she did not wish to have time to seek any reasons why she should turn back. At the top, her breath was short. She halted on the last stair. She did not know what she was going to find.
A long general hall, uncarpeted, tiled. At right and left, two doors ajar: voices called from one lodging to the other. Through the door on the left a reflection from the setting sun fell upon the red tiles. That was where Sylvie lived.
Annette knocked. Some one called out, "Come in!" without ceasing to chatter. Annette pushed open the door; the light from the golden heavens struck her full in the face. She saw a young girl, half-dressed, in a skirt, with bare shoulders, and bare feet thrust into red slippers, walking back and forth with her supple, plump back turned towards her. She was looking for something on her toilet table, talking to herself, and powdering her nose with a puff.
"Well now! What is it?" she demanded in a tone that was nasal because of the pins thrust in one corner of her mouth.
Then suddenly, distracted by a lilac branch that was soaking in her water jug, she plunged her nose into it with a grunt of pleasure. Lifting her head, and looking into the mirror with her laughing eyes, she caught sight of Annette behind her, hesitating on the threshold, aureoled in sunlight. "Oh!" she exclaimed, turned around with bare arms lifted above her head, quickly thrust the pins back into her rearranged hair, came forward with hands outstretched, and then suddenly withdrew them, making a gesture of welcome that was cordial but reserved. Annette entered, vainly trying to speak. Sylvie was silent too. She offered her visitor a chair, and slipping into a well-worn, blue-striped dressing-gown, she sat down on the bed opposite her. They looked at each other, and each waited for the other to begin.
How different they were! Each studied the other with sharp, precise, unindulgent eyes which asked: "Who are you?"
Sylvie saw Annette, big, fresh, large of face, her nose a little snubbed, her forehead like that of a young heifer beneath a mass of twisted golden brown hair, with very thick eyebrows, large clear blue eyes that protruded a trifle, and that grew strangely hard at times when waves of emotion swept up from her heart; her mouth was large and her lips firm, with a light down at the corners, and habitually closed in a defensive, watchful, determined pout,—but when they opened they were illumined by a timid, radiant and delightful smile which transformed her whole countenance; her chin, like her cheeks, was full but not fat, both solidly cut; nape, neck and hands were the color of dark honey; beneath her beautiful, firm skin flowed pure blood. A little heavy of figure, her bust a trifle square, she had breasts that were large and full: Sylvie's practised eye felt them under the dress, lingering longest on the fine shoulders, so perfectly proportioned that they formed, with the white, round column of her neck, Annette's greatest physical charm. She knew how to dress, she was turned out with care; an excessive, an over-studied care in Sylvie's opinion: hair well done, not a ringlet out of place, not a hook and eye at fault, everything in order. Sylvie was asking herself: "And is she the same inside?"
Annette saw Sylvie, almost as tall as herself (perhaps just as tall) but thin, slender of figure, with a head that was small for her body, now half-naked under her peignor, and a throat that was slight but plump, while her arms too were plump: balancing herself on her little rump, she sat with her hands clasped over her round knees. Round too were her forehead and her chin; her little nose turned up; her light brown hair grew low on the temples and curled over the cheeks, and little wandering hairs appeared on the nape and the white, very white and slender, neck. A hot-house plant. The two profiles of her face were asymmetrical: the right-hand one was languorous, sentimental,—a sleeping cat; the left-hand one, malicious, watchful,—a biting cat. When she spoke, her upper lip drew back over laughing teeth. And Annette was thinking: "Beware of her bite!"
How different they were! . . . And yet at the first glance both had recognized the expression, the clear eyes, the forehead, the wrinkle at the corner of the mouth,—the father. . . .
Annette, frightened and stiff, took her courage in her hands and, in a pale voice that was chilled by excess of emotion, she told who she was, her name. Sylvie let her speak without ceasing to stare at her; then, calmly, with a slightly cruel smile of her curled upper lip, she said: "I knew it."
Annette started.
"How?"
"I've seen you before, often, with father. . . ."
Before those last words there was an imperceptible hesitation. Perhaps she had been going to say "my father." But she felt an ironic pity for Annette's glance that read her lips. Annette understood, averted her eyes, and blushed, humiliated.
Sylvie missed none of it; she took a leisurely delight in Annette's embarrassment. She continued to speak without haste, studiedly. She said that she had been in the church, at the funeral service, in one of the aisles, and that she had seen everything. Her singsong, rather nasal voice reeled off her narrative with no show of emotion. But if Sylvie knew how to see, Annette knew how to hear; and when the girl had finished, Annette, raising her eyes, asked her:
"You loved him very much?"
The eyes of the two sisters exchanged a caress. But this lasted for a moment only. Already a jealous shadow had clouded Annette's expression, and she continued:
"He loved you very much."
She sincerely wished to please Sylvie, but she could not help a shade of spite creeping into her voice. Sylvie thought that she could sense a patronising tone. Immediately her paws showed their little claws, and she said spiritedly:
"Oh! yes, he loved me tremendously!"
She made a little pause; then, with a complacent air, let fly:
"And he was very fond of you, too. He often told me so."
Annette's passionate hands, her large nervous hands, trembled and clasped each other. Sylvie watched them. With contracted throat, Annette asked:
"He spoke to you of me, often?"
"Often," repeated the innocent Sylvie.
There was no assurance that she spoke the truth; but Annette, who had scant skill in hiding her own thoughts, did not suspect the words of others, and those of Sylvie touched her heart. . . . So, her father spoke of her to Sylvie, they talked about her together! And she, to the very last day, had known nothing; he had seemed to confide in her, and he had duped her; he had kept her out of things, she had not even known of her sister's existence! Such inequality, such injustice overwhelmed her. She felt that she was beaten. But she did not wish to show it; so she sought a weapon, found it, and said:
"You must have seen very little of him during the last years."
"Yes," conceded Sylvie regretfully, "during the last years that was so. He was sick. They kept him shut up."
There was a hostile silence. Both were smiling, both were champing at the bit: Annette, rigid and strained; Sylvie, her expression as false as a gambler's counter, caressing, mannered. Before going on with the game, they were counting up the points. Annette, a little relieved at having won a (very slight) advantage, and secretly ashamed of her evil thoughts, tried to put the conversation on a more cordial basis. She spoke of the desire she had felt to meet the girl in whom, too, her father lived again,—"a little." But it was in vain; despite herself she made it clear that there was a difference between their shares, and she let it be understood that hers was the privileged one. She told Sylvie about Raoul's last years, and she could not help showing how much more intimate she had been with him. Sylvie profited by a pause in the narrative to furnish Annette, in return, with her own memories of the paternal affection. And each, against her will, envied the other's share; and each tried to make her own seem the bigger. Speaking or listening (not wishing to listen, but hearing just the same) they continued to inspect each other from head to foot. Sylvie complaisantly compared her long legs, slim ankles and small bare feet, lost in their slippers, with Annette's somewhat heavy extremities and awkward ankles. And Annette, studying Sylvie's hands, did not fail to note the cultivated moons of the over-pink nails. It was not merely two young girls who confronted each other; it was two rival households. So, despite the apparent freedom of the conversation, they remained armed with eye and tongue, and observed each other harshly. The fierce sharpness of jealousy made each bluntly penetrate, at first glance, to the very depths of the other; to the faults and hidden vices unsuspected perhaps by their possessor. Sylvie recognized in Annette the demon of pride, inflexibility of principle, despotic violence, which had not yet, however, found occasion to exert itself. Annette recognized in Sylvie a practised sharpness and a smiling falseness. Later, when they loved each other, they would have given much to forget what they had seen. But for the instant their animosity gazed through a magnifying glass. There were seconds when they hated each other. Annette, with a bursting heart, was thinking:
"It isn't right, it isn't right! I should set the example."
Her eyes made a tour of the modest room, taking in the window, the lace curtains, the roof and chimneys of the opposite house under the moonlight, the lilac branch in the broken water jug.
In a cold tone, colder for the fact that she was burning inside, she offered Sylvie her friendship, her assistance. . . . Sylvie, negligently, with a malicious little smile, listened, made no reply. . . . Annette, mortified, ill hiding her piqued pride and incipient passion, rose abruptly. They exchanged a pleasant, commonplace good-bye. And, with sorrow and anger in her heart, Annette went out.
But as she reached the end of the tiled hall, and was already descending the first step of the stairs, Sylvie came running towards her, in her little Turkish slippers, one of which she lost on the way, and from behind she slipped her arms around Annette's neck. Annette turned, crying out with emotion. She hugged Sylvie in a burst of passion; and Sylvie cried out too, but with laughter at the violence of the embrace. Their mouths met ardently. Loving words. Affectionate murmurs. Thanks, promises that they would see each other soon. . . .
They drew apart. Annette, laughing with happiness, found that without realizing it she had descended to the bottom of the staircase. From above she heard a gamin's whistle, as though calling a dog, and Sylvie's voice whispering:
"Annette!"
She raised her head and saw high above her in a patch of light Sylvie's laughing face bending down.
"Catch!"
And Annette received full in her face a rain of drops and the wet lilac that Sylvie had thrown down to her, at the same time throwing kisses with both hands. . . .
Sylvie vanished. Annette, with lifted head, continued to look for her when she was no longer there. And, clasping the branch of wet flowers in her arms, she kissed the lilac.