Roger was in no hurry. After a few futile attempts to lead him on to this dangerous ground from which he seemed to flee, Annette, interrupting their conversation in the midst of a walk, stopped, took both his hands in hers, and said:
"Roger, we must have a talk."
"Talk!" he exclaimed, laughing. "But it doesn't seem to me that we deprive ourselves of that!"
"No," she said, "I don't mean talking pretty things; I mean a serious talk."
Immediately his expression grew a little frightened.
"Don't be afraid," she said, "it's about myself that I want to talk to you."
"About you?" he said, once more serene. "Then it's bound to be charming."
"Wait! Wait!" she exclaimed. "Perhaps you won't say that when you have heard me."
"What could you tell me now that would surprise me? Haven't we told each other everything, after being together for so many days?"
"So far as I'm concerned, I've scarcely said anything but Amen," said Annette, laughing. "You do all the talking."
"Oh! the bad girl!" exclaimed Roger. "Isn't it you that I talk about?"
"Yes, it's about me, too. And you even speak for me."
"You think that I talk too much?" asked Roger innocently.
Annette bit her lips.
"No, no, my dear Roger, I love it when you talk. But when you talk about me, I just listen to you; and it is so beautiful, so beautiful that I say, 'So be it!' But it's not true."
"You are the first woman to complain of her picture being beautiful."
"I should prefer it to be me. It's not a beautiful picture that you are going to hang up in your family home, Roger. I am a living woman, who has her desires, her passions, and her thoughts. Are you sure that she can come into your home with all her baggage?"
"I am taking you with my eyes closed."
"I am asking you to open them."
"I see your limpid soul, revealed in your face."
"Poor Roger! Good Roger! . . . You don't want to look."
"I love you. That's enough for me."
"I love you too. And that isn't enough for me."
"It's not enough?" he asked in a tone of consternation.
"No. I have to see."
"What is it you want to see?"
"I want to see how you love me."
"I love you more than everything else in the world."
"Naturally! You couldn't do less. But I am not asking you how much, I am asking you how you love me. . . . Yes, I know that you want me; but what is it, precisely, that you want to make of your Annette?"
"Make her half of myself."
"There you are! . . . Now the point is, my friend, that I am not a half. I am a whole Annette."
"That's just a way of speaking. I mean that you are me, and that I am you."
"No, no, don't be me, Roger! Let me be that!"
"When we unite our lives, won't we make them one?"
"That's what worries me. I am afraid I can't quite do that."
"What's troubling you, Annette? What are these ideas? You love me, don't you? You love me? That's the essential thing! Don't bother about the rest. The rest is my business. You'll see, I shall arrange—I, and my family that will be yours—we shall arrange your life so well that you will have nothing to do but let yourself be carried along."
Annette was looking at the ground and tracing letters in the dirt with her toe. She was smiling.
(He didn't understand at all, the dear boy. . . .)
She raised her eyes to Roger, who, with perfect tranquillity, was awaiting her response. She said:
"Roger, look at me. Haven't I good legs?"
"Good and beautiful," said he.
"That!" she said, menacing him with her finger, "that is not the question. . . . Am I not a strong walker?"
"Of course," he said. "And I like you to be."
"Well, then, do you think that I am going to let myself be carried? . . . You are very kind, very kind, and I thank you; but let me walk! I am not one of those who fear the fatigues of the road. To take them away from me is to take away my appetite for life. I rather have the impression that you and your family would like to free me from the trouble of acting and of choosing, would like to arrange everything in advance in prescribed pigeonholes, very comfortably—your life, their life, my life—the whole future. I shouldn't want that. I don't want it. I feel that I am at the beginning. I am seeking. I know that I have need of seeking, of seeking myself."
Roger's air was benevolent and bantering.
"And what can you seek?"
He saw here the crotchets of a young girl. She felt it, and said in a provoked tone:
"Don't make fun of me! . . . I don't amount to much, I don't pretend that I do. But after all I know what I am, and that I have a life . . . a poor little life. . . . It's not so long, a lifetime, and one has it only once. . . . I have the right. . . . No, not the right if you will! that seems egotistical. . . . It is my duty not to lose it, not to throw it away at random. . . ."
Instead of being touched, he assumed a hurt air.
"You think that you are throwing it away at random? Is your life going to be lost? Won't it have a fine, a very beautiful purpose?"
"Beautiful, no doubt. . . . But what? What do you offer me?"
Once again he ardently described his political career, the future of which he dreamed, his great personal and social ambitions. She listened to him talk, then, gently stopping him in the middle (for of such a subject he was never weary), she said:
"Yes, Roger. Certainly. That is very, very interesting. But to tell you the truth—no, don't be ruffled—I haven't quite as much faith as you in this political cause to which you are consecrating yourself."
"What! you don't believe in it? But you did believe in it when I spoke to you about it those first times that I saw you in Paris. . . ."
"I have changed a little," said she.
"What has changed you? . . . No, no, it's not possible. . . . You will change back again. My generous Annette couldn't be disinterested in the cause of the people, in the reform of society!"
"But I am not disinterested in it," she replied. "What I am disinterested in is the political cause."
"They are the same thing."
"Not entirely."
"The victory of one will be the victory of the other."
"I rather doubt it."
"Yet it is the only way of serving progress and the people."
(Annette thought: "While serving himself." But she reproached herself for it.)
"I see other ways."
"What are they?"
"The oldest is still the best. Like those who followed Christ, to give all, to leave all behind, in order to go to the people."
"What a utopia!"
"Yes, I believe you. You are not a Utopian, Roger. I thought that you were at first; I think so no longer. In politics you have the sense of reality. With your great talent, I am perfectly sure of your future success. If I doubt the cause, I don't doubt you. You will have a splendid career. I can see you already at the head of a party, an applauded orator, winning a majority in Parliament, a minister . . ."
"Stop!" he said. ". . . Macbeth, you will be King! . . ."
"Yes, I am something of a witch . . . for others. But what vexes me is that I am not for myself."
"Yet it's not so difficult. If I become minister, that concerns you too. . . . Now see here, frankly, wouldn't that please you?"
"What? To be a minister? Heavens above! Not in the least! . . . Forgive me, Roger . . . it would make me glad for your sake, of course. And if I were with you, you may be sure that I would play my part to the best of my ability, and I would be happy to help you. . . . But (you wanted me to be frank, didn't you?) I must confess that such a life would not fill my life, not at all."
"Of course, I understand that. The woman best fitted in the world to share a life of political activity—take my admirable mother for example!—couldn't limit herself to that. Her real task is in the home. And her proper vocation is motherhood."
"I know," said Annette. "We shan't argue about that vocation. But . . . (I am afraid of what I am going to say, I am afraid that you won't understand me) . . . I don't know yet what motherhood will bring me. I am very fond of children. I think that I would be very much attached to my own. . . . (You don't like that word? Yes, I seem cold to you. . . .) Perhaps I would be completely wrapped up in them. . . . It is possible. . . . I don't know. . . . But I shouldn't like to say something that I don't feel. And to be perfectly frank, this 'vocation' is not yet entirely awakened in me. While still waiting for life to reveal something of which I am ignorant, it doesn't seem to me that a woman ought, in any case, to bury her whole life in this love of children. . . . (Don't raise your eyebrows! . . .) I am convinced that it is possible to love one's child, loyally perform one's domestic task, and still keep enough of oneself—as one ought to—for the most essential thing."
"The most essential?"
"One's soul."
"I don't understand."
"How can one make one's inner life understood? Words are so uncertain, so obscure, botched! The soul . . . It is ridiculous to speak of the soul! What does it mean? I can't explain what it is. But it is. It is what I am, Roger, the truest and deepest."
"Don't you give me what is truest and deepest?"
"I can't give all," she said.
"Then you don't love me."
"Yes, Roger, I love you. But no one can give all."
"You are not enough in love. When one is in love, one doesn't think of holding back any part of oneself. Love . . . love . . . love . . ."
And he soared off into one of his great speeches. Annette heard him celebrate, in moving terms, the whole gift of self, the joy of sacrificing for the happiness of the beloved. And she thought:
(My dear, why do you say all that? Do you think I don't know it? Do you think that I couldn't sacrifice myself for you, if it were necessary, and find my joy in it? But on one condition: that you don't demand it. . . . Why do you demand it? . . . Why do you seem to expect it as your right? Why haven't you confidence in me, in my love?)
After he had finished, she said:
"That is very beautiful. . . . I wouldn't be capable, you know, of expressing these things as well as you. But perhaps, on occasion, I wouldn't be incapable of feeling them. . . ."
He exclaimed: "Perhaps! On occasion!"
"You find that very little, don't you? It is more than you think. . . . But I don't like to promise more . . . (perhaps it is less) . . . than I can fulfill. I don't know in advance. We must trust each other. We are upright people. We love each other, Roger. We shall do all that we can."
Again he raised his arms.
"All that we can! . . ."
She smiled and continued.
"Do you want to trust me? I need to draw on my credit. I have much to ask. . . ."
He was prudent: "Go ahead!"
"I love you, Roger, but I should like to be sincere. From my childhood I have lived alone a good deal and enjoyed a great deal of freedom. My father left in me a spirit of independence, which I haven't abused, because it seemed quite natural to me, and because it was wholesome. So I have acquired certain habits of mind that I should find difficult, now, to do without. I know that I am rather different from the majority of young girls of my class. Yet I believe that what I feel they feel too; only I dare to say it, and I have a clearer conscience. You ask me to unite my life with yours. It is my wish. For each of us it is our most profound desire to find our beloved mate. And it seems to me that you could be that mate, Roger . . . if . . . if you wished . . ."
"If I wished!" he exclaimed. "That's a good joke! I don't do anything but wish! . . ."
"If you truly wished to be my mate. It is not a joke. Reflect! . . . To unite our lives means to suppress either one or the other. . . . What do you offer me? . . . You aren't aware of it, because the world has long been used to these inequalities. But they are new to me. . . . You do not come to me with only your affection. You come to me with your family, your friends, your clients, and your relatives, with your course mapped out, your career fixed, with your party and its dogmas, your family and its traditions,—with a whole world that is yours, a whole world that is you. And I, who have a world too, who am also a world,—you say to me: 'Abandon your world! Throw it away, and enter into mine!' I am ready to come, Roger, but I must come whole. Do you accept me as I am?"
"I want all," said he. "It was you, just now, who said that you could not give me all."
"You don't understand. I say: 'Do you accept me free? And do you accept all of me?'"
"Free?" responded Roger circumspectly. "Everybody has been free in France since '89. . . ." (Annette smiled: "The old platitude! . . .") "But, after all, we must understand each other. It is certainly evident that from the moment you marry you will not be completely free. By that act you will have contracted obligations."
"I don't like that word very much," said Annette, "but I am not afraid of the thing. I should joyously and freely take my part in the trials and labors of the man I loved, in the duties of our common life. But I won't renounce, on that account, the duties of my own life."
"And what other duties are there? After what you have told me and what I think I know, your life, my dear Annette, your life that until now has been so placid and so calm, does not seem to me to have experienced any very great exigencies? What could it demand? Is it your work that you mean? Would you like to go on with it? I confess that kind of activity seems wrong to me, for a woman. At least, as a vocation. It's bothersome, in the home. . . . But I can't believe that you are afflicted with this gift from Heaven. You are too human, and too well balanced."
"No, it isn't a question of a special vocation. That would be simple, for then one would have to follow it. . . . The demand, the exigence (as you say) of my life is less easy to formulate: for it is less precise and much more vast. It is a question of the right laid upon every living soul: the right to change."
Roger cried: "To change! To change love?"
"Even while always remaining faithful, as I have said, to a single love, the soul has the right to change. . . . Yes, I know, Roger, that the word 'change' frightens you. . . . It disturbs me, too. . . . When the passing hour is beautiful, I should like never to stir. One sighs that it cannot be held forever! . . . And yet, Roger, one ought not to do it; and, first of all, one cannot. One does not remain stationary. One lives, one goes forward, one is pushed,—one must, must advance! This does no injury to love; one takes that along. But love should not wish to hold us back, shut up with it in the immobile sweetness of a single thought. A beautiful love may last for a whole lifetime, but it cannot entirely fill it. Think, my dear Roger, that while still loving you I might find myself some day, perhaps (I find myself already), cramped within your circle of action and thought. I would never dream of arguing with you the excellence of your choice. But would it be just for it to be imposed on me? And don't you find it equitable to grant me the right of opening the window, if I haven't enough air,—and even the door, a little—(oh! I won't go far)—and for me to have my own little province of activity, my intellectual interests, my friendships, not to remain confined to one point of the globe, to the same horizon, but to try and enlarge it, to seek a change of air, to emigrate. . . . (I say: if it is necessary. . . . I don't know yet. But in any case I need to feel that I am free to do it, that I am free to wish, free to breathe, free . . . free to be free . . . even if I never make use of my liberty.) . . . Forgive me, Roger, perhaps you find this need absurd and childish. It is not, I assure you; it is the most profound need of my being, the breath that gives me life. If it were taken away from me, I should die. . . . I can do everything, for love. . . . But constraint kills me. And the idea of constraint makes me a rebel. No, the union of two beings ought not to become a mutual enchainment. It should be a twofold blooming. I should like each, instead of being jealous of the other's free development, to be happy in assisting it. Would you be, Roger? Would you know how to love me enough to love me free, free of you? . . ."
(She was thinking: "I should be yours only the more! . . .")
Roger was listening to her anxiously, nervous, and a little vexed. Any man would have been. Annette should have been capable of more adroitness. In her need of frankness and her fear of deception, she was always led into exaggerating the most startling features of her thought. But a stronger love than Roger's would not have set this all at naught. Roger, his self-love touched above all, wavered between two sentiments: that of not taking this feminine caprice seriously, and the annoyance that he felt at this moral insurrection. He had not perceived its passionate appeal to his heart. All that he understood of it was that it was a sort of obscure menace and attack upon his proprietary rights. If he had possessed more cunning in his management of women, he would have hidden his secret vexation, and promised, promised, promised . . . all that Annette desired. "Lover's promises, as many as the wind will carry. Why then be niggardly? . . ." But Roger, who had his faults, also had his virtues: he was, as they say, "a simple young fellow," too much filled with himself to be well acquainted with women, with whom he had had recent dealings. He lacked the skill to hide his vexation. And when Annette awaited his generous answer, she suffered the disappointment of seeing that while listening to her he had thought only of himself.
"Annette," said he, "I confess that I can scarcely understand what you ask of me. You talk of our marriage as of a prison, and your one idea seems to be to escape from it. My house has no bars at the windows, and it is large enough for one to be comfortable in it. But one cannot live with all the doors wide open, and my house is made to be lived in. You talk to me about leaving it, about having your individual life, your personal relationships, your friends, and even, if I have rightly understood, of your privilege to leave the home at will, in search of Heaven knows what you fail to find there, until it happens to please you to come back again some day. . . . This can't be serious, Annette! You haven't thought about it! No man could grant his wife a position that would be so humiliating for him and so equivocal for her."
These reflections were not, perhaps, lacking in good sense. But there are times when perfectly dry good sense, with no intuition of the heart, is a kind of nonsense. Annette, somewhat ruffled, answered with a proud frigidity that masked her emotion:
"Roger, it is necessary to have faith in the woman one loves; when one marries her, one must not do her the wrong of believing that she would not have the same care as yourself for your honor. Do you think that such a woman as myself would lend herself to an equivocation in order to humiliate you? Any humiliation for you would be a humiliation for her as well. And the freer she were, the more bound she would feel to watch over that part of yourself which you had confided to her. You will have to esteem me more highly. Aren't you capable of having confidence in me?"
He felt the danger of alienating her by his doubts; and, telling himself that after all there was no need of attaching an exaggerated importance to these feminine ideas, and that there would be time later to correct them—(if she remembered them!)—he returned to his first idea, which was to take the whole thing as a joke. So he believed that he was doing very well, when he said gallantly:
"Perfect confidence, Annette! I believe in your fair eyes. Only swear to me that you will love me always, that you will love me alone! I ask nothing more of you!"
But the little Cordelia, who could not reconcile herself to this trifling fashion of avoiding the honest response on which her life depended, stiffened against this impossible pledge.
"No, Roger, I can't, I can't swear that. I love you very much. But I cannot promise something that does not depend upon myself. It would mean deceiving you; and I shall never deceive you. I promise you simply to hide nothing from you. And if the time comes when I love you no longer, or love another, you will be the first to know it,—even before that other. And you do the same! Oh, Roger! let us be honest!"
That was scarcely possible. Embarrassing truth was something to which the house of Brissot was not accustomed. When it knocked on the door, they hastened to send word:
"Everyone is out!"
Roger did not fail to do it. He cried:
"My dear, how pretty you are! . . . There, let us talk of something else! . . .”