From among the drifting souls that swarmed about her, Annette's eyes, her distrait eyes that unsuspectedly surveyed them all, had finally made their choice. But they had not admitted it. As long as possible she tried to preserve the illusion of continued hesitation. When one no longer needs to make a decision, then it is sweet to murmur to oneself, "I am not bound as yet," and to leave the doors of hope wide open for the last time.
There were two in particular between whom she liked to leave her future in the balance, although she knew perfectly well which one she had chosen; two young men between twenty-eight and thirty: Marcel Franck and Roger Brissot. Both belonged to the comfortably situated middle class, and were distinguished in manner, pleasant and intelligent, but possessed of minds and characters of different orders.
Marcel Franck, of a half-Jewish family, was one of those charming types that are sometimes produced by the mixed marriage of well chosen individuals of two races. Of medium height, slim, graceful and elegant, he had blue eyes set in a dead white face, a slightly curved nose, a small fair beard, and an elongated, somewhat horsey profile that recalled Alfred de Musset. His glance was intelligent and caressing, by turns coaxing and impudent. His father, a rich cloth merchant, cautious in business and strong in his passions, who had a taste for the new art, patronized the young reviews, bought Van Goghs and Rousseaus, had married a beautiful Toulousaine, who had won the second prize in comedy at the Conservatory, and who for a time had been the rage at Antoine's and Porel's. This lady, first taken by assault, and thereafter in lawful wedlock, by the vigorous Jonas Franck, had abandoned the stage in the midst of her success, to maintain intelligently, along with her husband's affairs, a literary salon much frequented by artists. This most united household, neither member of which, by tacit accord, looked too closely into the other's conduct, and each of whom knew how to handle gossip, had brought up a single son in an atmosphere of tolerant and sharpened intelligence. At home Marcel Franck had learned that there is a harmony of work and pleasure, and that the art of life depends upon their wise union. He cultivated this art no less than the others, in which he had become a discerning connoisseur. Attracted to the national museums he had made a precocious reputation as a writer on art. Quite as well as pictures, he knew how to observe living figures with his idle, penetrating, insolent, indulgent glance. And among the young men who were courting Annette, it was he who read her best. She was quite aware of it. Sometimes as she was emerging from one of those absent-minded reveries, during a conversation in which she was following every other thought but the one she was uttering, she would meet his curious eyes that seemed to say to her:
"Annette, I see you naked."
And the most astonishing thing was that she, the modest Annette, was not embarrassed by this. She felt like replying:
"And how do you find me, that way?"
They exchanged an understanding smile. If he saw her unveiled, it was of slight importance; she knew that she would never be his. Marcel read this certainty in her. He was not troubled by it. He was thinking:
"We shall see about that!"
For he knew the other.
The other, Roger Brissot, had been a college chum of his. Franck perfectly understood that Annette preferred him. . . . To begin with, at least . . . ("Afterward? . . . That is another affair! . . .") Brissot was a handsome fellow, with a fine open countenance, a frank expression, gay brown eyes, regular features that were rather strong, a full face, sound teeth,—clean-shaven, with a youthful abundance of black hair combed back from an intelligent brow and parted at the side. Tall, broad-chested, long of leg, and with well-muscled arms, his movements were easy and his actions lively. He spoke well, very well, in a warm musical voice, a little low and resonant, that people liked,—that he liked. With his quick, ready, glittering intelligence, he rivaled Franck in his studies, and was no less fond of athletics. In Burgundy, where his family's property—woods and vineyards—adjoined the Rivière's country place, he was an intrepid walker, hunter, and horseman. In the old days Annette had met him more than once on his walks. But at that time she had given scant thought to a companion, she liked to go her own way; and Roger too, having slipped away from Paris for these months in the open air, played the young Hippolyte, affecting to prefer his horse and his dog to a girl. In passing, they had exchanged no more than bows and glances. But those had not been entirely lost. Agreeable images remained, and the vague attraction of two beings physically well suited.
The idea had occurred to the Brissot family. No less than their persons, their fortunes seemed made for union. However, so long as Raoul Rivière lived, the neighborly relations had remained polite enough, but rather cold and distant. By a curious freak, Rivière, who would have yielded to no man as a free thinker, had as an architect numbered his clients, until the Dreyfus Affair, almost exclusively in the aristocracy and the reactionary camp; and as he was too clever not to give them lip service, and even to go to mass when it was useful that he should be noticed, he passed for a reactionary and even a clerical (which made him laugh heartily!) in the eyes of the radical republicans of his province. Now the Brissots were pillars of radicalism. This family of the robe—advocates and attorneys—who prided themselves on having been republicans for more than a century (their republicanism dated, indeed, from the days of the First Republic, but they forgot to mention that their ancestor had received the Order of the Lily upon the return of the Bourbons), believed in the Republic as others believe in God the Father, and they considered themselves bound by their traditions: noblesse oblige! So the Brissots had felt it was their duty to manifest their austere censure of Raoul Rivière by holding him at a distance; which did not bother him at all, as he expected no commissions from them. Came the famous Dreyfus Affair, in which Rivière, as we have seen, found himself, without dreaming of such a thing, in the Progressive party. In a flash, he was whitewashed; a sponge was applied to his past, and people even discovered in Rivière exalted civic and republican virtues, which he himself would never have suspected, but from which he would assuredly have derived excellent profit, had death not come to spoil his plans.
The Brissots' plans had not suffered in consequence. These great republicans who, for a century, had known boldly how to harmonize their principles and their interests, were rich; and, naturally, they dreamed of being more so. They knew that Rivière had left his daughter a very tidy fortune. It would be very nice to unite his Burgundy property to the Brissot possessions, which it would complete so happily. But with people who had such principles as the Brissots, worldly reasons came second,—even when it happened that they thought of them first: in a question of marriage, it was the young girl who must first be taken into account. The young girl, in this instance, answered all requirements. Annette satisfied them by what they knew of her, by her serious ways, and by what they had learned of her devotion to her father. They were impressed by her intelligence and by her simplicity. Her bearing in society was perfect. She had composure. Enough wit. Good health. Doubtless her work at the Sorbonne, her studies and her diplomas, seemed a little affected to them; but they considered these the pastimes of an intelligent young girl who was bored, and who would put them aside when her first child arrived. And the Brissots were not averse to showing that they liked intelligence, even in a woman,—provided, naturally, it did not become embarrassing. Annette would not be the first feminine intellectual in the family, thank Heaven! Madame Brissot, the mother, and Roger's sister Adèle, enjoyed the reputation, justified in a sense, of being brainy women, no less than women of sentiment, who were able to share the mental life as well as the active life of the men of their household. Annette's intellectuality was at least a guarantee (the great point!) that in her case there was no danger of clericalism. For the rest, she would find in her new family affectionate guidance that would know how to guard her from any extravagances. It would not be difficult for the dear child to become part of the family whose name she was to take: she had no parents, and she would be only too glad to put herself under the aegis of a second mother and a slightly older sister, who would ask merely to guide her. For the Brissot ladies, who were keen observers, judged Annette to be really congenial, very distinguished, sweet, polished, reserved, timid (from their point of view this was not a fault) and a little cold (this was almost a virtue).
It was then with the support of his whole family, previously consulted, that Roger paid his court. He hid nothing from them, sure that he would always meet with approval. This big fellow was idolized by his family, and he repaid them in full measure. The Brissots practiced mutual admiration. There was a hierarchy, but each had his worth. It had to be recognized that they were all fairly evenly endowed on the mental side, as well as with the advantages of body and of fortune. They recognized the fact, but gracefully, like well-bred people. They never showed it to those whom they considered plainly their inferiors. But the truth could not be doubted, from the sweet certainty written on their features. Of all their certainties, Roger was the most certain. He was their dearest pride, and perhaps the best justified. Never had the Brissot tree borne more thriving fruit. Roger had the best gifts of his race, and if he had its faults as well, they were not startling: his charm and his youth caused them to be forgotten. He was full of talent, all things were easy for him, but especially speech. Eloquence was one of the family fiefs. It already counted one barrister; and from birth all the Brissots had a love of fine speech. It would have been an injustice to pretend that, like those talkers of the Midi, they had to talk in order to think; but they had to talk,—that was incontestable. Their real faculties bloomed in phrases; silence would have atrophied them. Roger's father, one of the most illustrious gabblers that ever honored the tribune of the Chamber, and on whom the voters had played the scurvy trick of not reelecting him, was suffocated by his stifled eloquence; and Roger, then aged six, used to say to him naïvely when they were alone by the hearth:
"Papa, make me a speech!"
Now he made them on his own account. In a trice his youthful reputation had been brilliantly established at the legal conferences at the Palais-Bourbon. Like all the Brissots, he had turned his gifts towards politics. The meetings in connection with the Dreyfus Affair had furnished him with an excellent springboard; he bounded into the arena, delivering speeches in mid-flight. The youthful fire, bravura, and well chosen, overflowing speech of this handsome young man, won for him the enthusiastic sympathy of the young feminine Dreyfusistes and many of his juniors. The Brissots, ever desirous of not allowing themselves to be outdistanced on the road of Progress, but very careful not to go a step too far or too early, having carefully surveyed the terrain, spurred their son, their young pride, along the way of serious socialism. Roger, his nose to the trail, gave himself to the task. Like the flower of the youth of his day, he was under the spell of Jaurès, and he tried to model his orations on the splendid speeches of the great rhetorician, filled with prophetic visions and illusory mirages. He proclaimed the necessity of an understanding between the people and the intellectuals. This furnished him a theme for the most eloquent speeches. Even though the people—who lacked leisure—did not know much about it, they were seriously disturbing the leisure of the young bourgeoisie. With personal subscriptions and the assistance of a small group of friends, Roger founded a study club, a newspaper, a party. He spent a great deal of time and a little money on them. The Brissots, who were good reckoners, also knew how to spend on occasion. They were pleased to see their son become a leader of the younger generation. They prepared the ground for the coming elections. Roger was marked for a place in the future Chamber. Nor was he ignorant of the fact. Accustomed from childhood to see his family believe in him, he believed in himself, too; and without precisely knowing what his ideas were, he had an absolute faith in them. In no way overweening. He was full of himself, but so naturally! He was successful in everything; he was so accustomed to it that it did not even occur to him to pride himself on the fact; but he would have been dumbfounded had it been otherwise, his surest dogmas would have received a serious blow. How likable he was! A naïve, unconscious and shallow egotist, a good fellow and a handsome fellow, disposed to give but determined to receive, and unable to conceive that anything could be refused him, simple, polite, cordial, demanding, waiting for the world to place itself at his feet. . . . He was really very attractive.