The Brissots prudently gave their approval of Annette's expressed desire to prolong the engagement: they did not wish to imperil their success by showing too much haste. But they felt it necessary to surround Annette during these months of waiting. It would not do to leave her to herself; there was always a risk of the strange girl escaping.
Easter Sunday was approaching. The Brissots invited Annette to spend Easter week with them at their country place in Burgundy. Annette accepted regretfully; she was tempted and afraid; afraid of adding to the chains that already bound her, afraid of being completely captured or of breaking everything; and afraid of still other things, more dangerous, that she did not like to consider. She did not wish to escape from the state of amorous uncertainty in which she was allowing herself to be cradled: she suffered from it a little, and she found a certain charm in it. She would have liked to prolong it. But she knew perfectly well that it was not wholesome, and that she had not the right to do so, face to face with Roger.
Finally she decided to lay her troubles before Sylvie. Never had she said a word to her of her love for Roger. Yet she confided everything to her: of all the other young men she had often spoken to her. . . . Yes, but she didn't love the other young men! And Roger's name had been kept out of their conversation.
Sylvie exclaimed, called her "Sneak!" and laughed uproariously when Annette tried to explain her indecision, her scruples and her torments.
"Well now," she demanded, "is this bird of yours handsome?"
"Yes," replied Annette.
"He loves you?"
"Yes."
"And you love him?"
"I love him."
"Well then, what's stopping you?"
"Oh! it is so difficult! How can I tell you? . . . I love him. . . . I love him tremendously. . . . He is so wonderful!"
(She began to describe him complaisantly, under Sylvie's mocking eyes. Then she broke off. . . .)
"I love him very much . . . very much. . . . And then, too, I don't love him. . . . There are things about him . . . I could never live with . . . I never could. . . . And then, he loves me too much. He would like to eat me. . . ."
(Sylvie burst out laughing.)
". . . It's true, eat me entirely, devour my whole life, all my own thoughts, the very air I breathe. . . . Oh! he's an excellent eater, my Roger! It's a pleasure to see him at the table. . . . He has a good appetite. . . . But I, I don't want to be eaten."
She too laughed heartily; and Sylvie, who was sitting in her lap, laughed against her neck. Annette went on:
"It's frightful to feel yourself being devoured like that, alive, to have nothing of your own any more, not to be able to keep anything any longer. . . . And he doesn't suspect it. . . . He loves me madly, and I have an idea, you see, that he doesn't even try to understand me, that he doesn't even think about it. He comes, he takes, he carries me off. . . ."
"Well, that's terribly nice!" observed Sylvie.
"You are always thinking about silly things!" said Annette, clasping her in her arms.
"And what would you like to have me think about?"
"About marriage. That's a serious thing."
"Serious! oh! well, not so serious!"
"What, it isn't serious to give all of yourself, without a single reservation?"
"And who talked about doing that? You'd have to be mad!"
"But he wants to have everything!"
Sylvie squirmed with laughter like a little fish.
"Oh! you goose! you stupid! . . . Ninny!"
(It seemed to her so simple to say what one wished, to give what one wished, and to keep back all the rest without saying anything about it! She was affectionately ironical towards men and their demands. They are not so sharp! . . .)
"But I'm not, I'm not all those things," Annette protested.
"Oh! So far as that goes!" exclaimed Sylvie, "you take everything so seriously."
Annette admitted the fact, contritely.
"It's too bad all the same! . . . I wish I were like you! . . . You have all the luck!" she went on.
"Let's exchange! Hand over yours!" said Sylvie.
Annette had no desire to exchange. Sylvie left her comforted.
But at the same time, Annette did not understand herself. She was puzzled.
"It's curious!" she said to herself, "I want to give everything. And I want to keep everything! . . ."
The next day—it was the eve of her departure—while she was finishing her preparations, when she was beginning to torment herself again, a singular visit added to her anxieties, at the same time clarifying them. Marcel Franck was announced.
After a few amiably courteous speeches, he alluded to Annette's engagement, of which Roger had made no mystery. Gracefully he felicitated her, his voice and eyes gently ironic, affectionate. Annette felt very much at ease with him, as with a perspicacious friend to whom one need not say all, from whom one need hide nothing,—for half-words carry understanding. They talked of Roger, whom Marcel envied, smilingly. Annette knew that he spoke the truth, and that he was in love. But it caused them no perturbation. She asked him questions about Roger, whom he knew intimately. Marcel sang his praises; but when she insisted that he speak of him in a somewhat less banal fashion, he jokingly said that it was useless for him to describe Roger, as she knew him quite as well as he. And, saying this, he fixed her with so penetrating a glance that, for an abashed moment, she turned away her eyes. Then, staring in turn at him, she encountered his shrewd smile which showed that they understood each other. They talked for some time of indifferent matters, and then Annette abruptly interrupted, in a preoccupied tone:
"Tell me frankly," she said, "do you think I've made a mistake?"
"I should never think of you as being mistaken," said he.
"No, don't be polite! You are the one person who can tell me the truth."
"But you know that my position is peculiarly delicate."
"I know it. But I know, too, that it has no effect on the sincerity of your judgment."
"Thanks!" said he.
She continued:
"You think that we are mistaken, Roger and I?"
"I think that you are deceiving yourselves."
She bowed her head. Then she said:
"I think so too."
Marcel did not respond. He continued to look at her and smile.
"Why are you smiling?"
"I was sure that you thought so." Annette, turning her eyes upon him, asked:
"Tell me, now, what I seem like to you?"
"I should teach you nothing."
"You will help me to see more clearly."
"You are," Marcel said to her, "an amorous rebel. Perpetually amorous (forgive me!) and perpetually rebellious. You feel the need of giving yourself, and you feel the need of withholding yourself. . . ."
(Annette could not conceal a slight start.)
"I shock you?"
"No, no, quite the contrary! How true it is! Go on! Tell me some more. . . ."
"You are," Marcel continued, "an independent who cannot remain alone. It is the law of nature. You feel it more keenly, because you are more alive."
"Yes, you understand me! You understand me better than he does. But . . ."
"But it is he whom you love."
There was no bitterness in the tone. Very friendlily they stared at each other, amused at the strangeness of human nature.
"It is not easy to live," said Annette, "to live in pairs."
"Why, yes, it would be easy enough, if men hadn't spent their time for centuries ingeniously complicating life by reciprocal restraints. The only thing to do is to throw them off. But naturally our excellent Roger, like any good old Frenchman, doesn't conceive of the idea. They think that they are lost if they no longer feel themselves weighed down by the restraints of the past. 'Where there is no restraint, there is no pleasure . . .' especially when in being restrained one restrains one's neighbor."
"What is your conception of marriage, then?"
"As an intelligent association of interests and pleasures. Life is a vine that we exploit in common; together we cultivate it and gather the grapes. But we are not compelled always to drink our wine together, always tête-à-tête. There is a mutual complaisance that demands from and gives to the other the clusters of pleasure, of which each disposes, and which allows one discreetly to finish his harvesting elsewhere.
"What you mean," asked Annette, "is the liberty of adultery?"
"The old obsolete word! What I mean," answered Marcel, "is the liberty of love, the most essential of all liberties."
"That's the thing of least importance to me," said Annette. "For me marriage is not a public square in which one gives oneself to every passer-by. I give myself to one alone. The day on which I ceased to love and loved another, I should separate from the first; I should not divide myself between them, and I could not bear the division."
Marcel made an ironic gesture that seemed to say:
"What does it matter? . . ."
"So you see, my friend," Annette went on, "in the last analysis, I am still further away from you than from Roger."
"So you too," demanded Marcel, "belong to the good old school: 'Let us hamper one another'?"
"The one grandeur of marriage," said Annette, "is monogamous love, the fidelity of two hearts. If that is lost, what remains outside of a few practical advantages?"
"They are not negligible," said Marcel.
"They are not enough," replied Annette, "to compensate for the sacrifices."
"If that's your opinion, what are you complaining about? You rivet the bars from which one would deliver you."
"The liberty that I want," said Annette, "is not that of the heart. I feel that I am strong enough to keep that intact for the one to whom I give it."
"Are you so sure of that?" Marcel demanded tranquilly.
Annette was not so sure of it! She too was doubtful. It was her mother's daughter who was speaking at this moment, it was not the whole Annette. But she did not wish to admit it, especially to Marcel, and in an argument. She said:
"I wish it."
"Will power in such matters! . . ." exclaimed Marcel, with his shrewd smile. ". . . It is as though one decreed that a red fire should be a green fire. Love is a lighthouse of changing fires."
But Annette obstinately said:
"Not for me! . . . I don't want it to be!"
She was perfectly aware, and with the same conviction, of the need of change and of the need of permanence, those two passionate instincts of all vigorous lives. But, turn and turn about, whichever one of these two felt itself threatened, revolted.
Marcel, being well acquainted with the proud and obstinate girl, bowed politely.
Annette, who judged herself as accurately as he judged her, said a little shamefacedly:
"After all, I shouldn't like . . ."
And, with this concession made to the spirit of truth, she continued more firmly, now feeling herself to be on ground of which she was sure:
"But I should like, in exchange for the gift of mutual affection, that each should preserve the right to live according to his own soul, to walk in his own way, to seek his own truth, to secure, if need be, his own field of activity,—to carry out, in a word, the proper law of his own spiritual life, and not sacrifice himself to the law of another, even the dearest person of all: for no one has the right to immolate another's soul, or his own for the sake of another. It is a crime."
"That's all very fine, my dear friend," said Marcel, "but for me, you know, the soul is a little beyond my depth. Perhaps it may mean more to Roger. But I am afraid that in that case he will not understand it in the same fashion. I can't quite see the Brissots, in their family circle, conceiving the possibility of any spiritual law save that of the political and private fortunes of the Brissots."
"By the way," said Annette, smiling, "to-morrow I'm going to their place in Burgundy to spend two or three weeks."
"Well," remarked Marcel, "that will be a case of confronting their idealism with your own. For they are great idealists, they too! After all, perhaps I am mistaken. At bottom you are admirably made to get along together."
"Don't dare me!" said Annette. "Perhaps I shall come back an accomplished Brissot."
"Dear me! That wouldn't be so cheerful! . . . No, no, I beg of you! . . . Brissot, or not Brissot, preserve us Annette!"
"Alas! I should like to lose her, but I can't, I'm afraid," Annette replied.
He said good-bye, kissing her hand.
"It's a pity, all the same! . . ."
He left. Annette, too, told herself that it was a pity, but not in the same sense that Marcel meant. It was in vain that he saw her clearly; he understood her no more than did Roger, who did not see her at all. To understand her required more "religious" souls—more religiously free—than those of almost all these young Frenchmen. Those who are religious, are so in the tradition of Catholicism, which means obedience and the renunciation of intellectual liberty (especially in the case of a woman). And those whose minds are free rarely suspect the profound needs of the soul.