The Choice of Life

The shop was white, with pearl-grey shutters; and on the ledges were bunchy plants gay with pink, starry flowers. In the window, a few starched caps looked as if they were talking scandal on their respective stands.

I walked in. The opening of the door roused the tongue of a little rusty bell, but nobody came. On a big grandfather's chair, near the counter, were a pair of spectacles and a book. Perhaps Mlle. Coquet had run away when she caught sight of me through the panes; Rose said that she was shy and a little frightened at the thought of my coming visit. And I had the pleasure of looking for my Rose as I followed the mysterious turns of a primitive passage.

The walls were spotless and the red-tiled floor shone in the half-light. I crossed a neat little kitchen, just as a cuckoo-clock was chiming five, and found myself on the threshold of a small room opening on a garden. Rose was sitting in the wide, low window.

The noise of the clock no doubt deadened the sound of my steps, for the girl did not turn her head. The room exhaled a faint perfume as of incense and musk; and I seemed to hold all her peaceful little life in my breath and in that swift glance. All that I could see of her face was one cheek and the tips of her long eyelashes. Placed as she was in front of the light, a golden haze shaded the colours of her beautiful hair; and I lingered in contemplation of the long and graceful curve of her figure bending over her work. She was sewing in the midst of floods of stiff white muslin, which formed a chain of snow-clad peaks with blue reflections around her. I looked at the low-ceilinged room with its whitewashed wall and its rows of bodices, petticoats and shiny caps hanging on lines stretched from one side to the other. A grey tom-cat lay purring on a corner of the table; and, near it, in a well-scrubbed pot, a pink geranium displayed its sombre leaves and its bright flowers.

Rose was sewing. At regular intervals, her right arm rose, drew out the thread and returned to the spot whence it started: an even and captive movement symbolical of the amount of activity permitted to women! But was she not to choose that movement among all others?

3

We dine in her bedroom. What a surprise her room held in store for me! Rose had arranged it herself, in harmony with the simplicity which I loved.

Brightly-painted wooden shelves make patches of colour on the white walls; the furniture is rustic; and the curtains of white muslin with mauve spots complete the frank and artless harmony of the room. How little this was to be expected from Mlle. Coquet's shop!

Then, on Rose's table, the books I gave her fill the place of honour. I dare say that she never reads them; and yet I am glad to see them here.

Rose goes to and fro between our little table and the kitchen. She looks pretty, she smiles. The slowness of her movements is no longer lethargic; it simply exhales an air of repose, a perfume of peace that suits her beauty. Her eyes have fastened on me at once and, as in the old days, never leave me.

Is it the tyranny of habit that used to prevent me from reading anything in them? Now, those eyes that ingenuously drink in my life as the flowers do the light, those eyes not veiled by any shadow, constantly bring the tears to mine. She sees this and fondly lays her head on my shoulder, whispering:

"I did nothing but expect you, darling, only I had given up hoping...."

This term of endearment, which she addresses to me for the first time, as if, being no longer subject to any effort, she were at last yielding to the sweets of friendship, this expression and my Christian name, which she utters lovingly, complete the pleasantness of the evening.

I feel happy amid it all. We who were brought up in the country never lose our appreciation of its peaceful charm. It bows down our lives as we bow our forehead in our hands to think beyond our immediate surroundings; and from its narrow circle we are better able to judge the expanse which has become necessary to us.

4

The night rises, things fade away. The sky is a deep blue in the frame of the open window. Rose brings the lamp:

"It was the first companion of my solitude," she says, reminiscently; then, laughing, "the companion of my boredom, the companion of those long, long evenings...."

"But now, dearest?…"

"Ah, now, the days are too short: I have a thousand duties to perform, my dear little old woman to look after, my customers, my flowers, my animals; then, in the evening, we often have a caller: the priest, the notary, the neighbours...."

Then, suddenly fearing that she has hurt me, she adds, in a caressing tone:

"When I am with them, I am always talking about you, so as to comfort myself for the loss of you; for that is my only sorrow."

5

An hour or two later, sitting in the garden, we watched the stars appearing one by one. Our arms were round each other; our fair tresses were intermingled. We were at the far end of the town. We heard the sounds of the country ringing in the transparent air; and the crystal voice of the frogs, that small, clear note falling steadily and marking time to our thoughts. We were quiet, like everything around us, unstirred by a breath of wind.

Rose spoke of her happiness; and I never wearied of inhaling that delicious tranquillity. I had been thinking of settling her future for her. And what an inestimable lesson I was learning from her! Rose was one of those whose road must be marked from hour to hour by a little duty of some kind or another. It is thus, by limiting themselves, that these characters arrive at knowing and asserting themselves. She said, blithely, "my room," "my garden," "my house;" and I smiled as I reflected that I had once struggled to rid that mind of all useless bonds.

6

What a mistake I had made! In order to find her life, she had had to earn it and to recognise it in the very things that now belonged to it, to mark every hour of it with humdrum tasks, to create for herself little troubles on her own level, difficulties which her good sense could easily overcome. There was nothing unexpected, nothing far-reaching in her life, never an event beyond the tinkle of the shop-bell announcing a customer, a little bell with a short, sharp, cracked ring, stopping on a single note without vibration, as though it were the very voice of the little souls which it excited.

In contrast with this humble destiny, I considered my own full of difficulty and agitation, so crowded and yet doubtless equally empty; I followed in my mind's eye the lives of my friends; and I reflected that the nature of us women, alike of the most wayward and the most direct, is too delicate and too complex for us easily to keep our balance in a state of complete liberty.

"When we achieve it," I said to Rose, "it is thanks to a close and constant observation of ourselves; for woman never has any real moral strength. Self-sacrifice and kindness alone lend us some, because our capacity for loving knows no limit: our strength is then a loan which we make to ourselves at difficult moments by a miracle of love. Once the crisis is over, we have to pay … with interest!"

"In Paris," said Rose, "even from the very first, I had a feeling that I should never dare to move in the absolute liberty that was offered me. You are not angry with me?"

"How could I be? We were both wanderers, you and I, where circumstances led us, both of us with a passion for sincerity, both of us with the best of intentions. A cleverer mind than mine would doubtless have saved you from going out of your way. It had many unnecessary turnings. But perhaps they had their uses...."

"Yes," replied my friend, wisely, "for without them, I should not have been so certain that my choice was right...."

7

Around us the mysterious life of the night was gradually awaking. All the animals that shun the daylight were beginning to stir. A hedgehog brushed against my skirt. In the grass, two glowworms summoned love with all their fires. The smell of the garden became overpowering. Our movements and our words throbbed in a scented air. Rose leant towards me:

"There is one thought that troubles me," she said. "Have I discouraged you? Will others better equipped than I still find you ready to lend them a helping hand?"

"Why not, Roseline?" And I would have liked to put my very soul into the kiss which I gave her. "No, you have not discouraged me. The only thing that matters is to have the power to choose what suits us. Then alone is it possible for us to develop ourselves without restraint. With your limited horizon, you are freer, darling, than when you were living with me, at the mercy of all the fancies which you did not know how to use. Everything is relative; and instinct makes no mistakes. Yours, by placing you here among the lives which I can imagine, gives you the opportunity of excelling. You felt that you needed to live under conditions in which the effort and the merit would lie in not changing, in which action would be immobility. You know, Rose, there is always some common ground in human beings; to reach it, if you do not stoop, the others will raise themselves. With your beauty which is the wonder of every one you meet, with that gentleness which wins all hearts and with your soul which no longer knows either malice or prayer, you will be a new example of life to all around you."

Rose was sitting on a higher chair than mine; and this allowed me to let my head sink into her lap. I no longer dreamt of looking at the splendour of the night, for was it not throbbing in my heart, where a star woke every moment? And I thought out loud:

"You were always asking me the object of my efforts. Do you now understand that I could not explain what I myself did not understand perfectly until you revealed it to me?"

I reflected for a moment and continued:

"We can wish nothing for others nor force anything on them: we can only help them to clear the field before and within themselves...."

She murmured:

"I understand."

And I cried:

"Ah, my dearest, how grateful I am to you! In looking for you, I have found myself a little more; and it is always so; and that, you see, is why we must love action. However tiny, however humble, it may be, it brings us at the same time the knowledge of others and of ourselves. We appear to fling ourselves stout-heartedly into the stream whose currents we cannot foresee; we are hurt, we are wounded, we struggle; but, when we return to the bank, we feel invigorated and refreshed."

Roseline stroked my forehead lightly with her hands and softly whispered:

"There was nothing lacking to my peace of mind but your approval. Now I am happy and I can begin my life without anxiety."

Chapter III

1

Rose was still asleep when I entered the drowsy bedroom to bid her good-bye. A small, heart-shaped opening in the middle of the shutters allowed the first ray of daylight to penetrate. Sleeping happily and trustfully, with streaming hair and hands out-flung, she lay strewn like the petals of a flower. I laid my lips on hers and softly went away.

As I climb the slope that leads out of Neufchâtel, I turn and look down once more on the little town that slumbers everlastingly in its rich peace. Just there, by the church, I picture the house with its grey shutters, its white front and its starched caps behind the flower-pots. Beyond, the green horizons and the blue hill-sides stand clearly marked in the dawning sun; and I gaze and gaze as far as my eyes can see, through my lashes sparkling with tears.

For all her lethargy, her slumber as of a beautiful plant, the soul of my Rose is wholesome, wholesome as those meadows, those fields, all that good Norman earth which gave her to me miserable only to take her back happy and free. Certainly, Rose has not been able to achieve the strength that makes use of liberty: in that life, still so young, the will is a dead branch through which the sap no longer flows. At any rate, what she does possess she will not lose; she is one of those who instinctively hold in their breath so as not to tarnish the pane through which a glimpse of infinity stands revealed to them. Her soul could not take in unlimited happiness, it had to feel a touch of sorrow in order to taste a little joy. There are many like her, people who perceive that the light is good when they come out of the darkness, but who are not able to recognise the light in the radiant beauty of the noon-day fields.

The sun rises as I slowly make my way up-hill; the wood along the road is still wet with the dawn. It offers me its autumnal fragrance; I breathe it in, I gaze at its golden tints, I think of Rose, of her past and her future. But, beyond my dreams, an unformed idea seems to spread like a clear sky, without outline, without colour, without beginning or end; and I have a secret feeling that I shall try again.

2

I shall go towards other strangers. I shall seek at random among hearts and souls! Fearlessly, in spite of censure and derision, I shall lavish my confidence in order to win that of others. I shall not linger over the vain pleasure of discovering the traces of my power. We can pour out our influence boldly: it is a wine that excites no two souls in a like manner; and we are always ignorant what the nature of the intoxication will be, whether fruitful or barren, blithe or cheerless.

I shall go towards other strangers; I understand now that my sole ambition is to bring life within their reach. What matter what their thoughts, their loves, their wishes, if at least they have acquired the taste and the means of thinking, loving and wishing?

Shall I ever succeed in evolving from this passion of mine a method, a system that will make my action less blind and uncertain? I think not.

In a life that never offers us anything logical or foreseen, our moral nature must needs resemble a drapery that is folded backwards and forwards over events, souls or circumstances. Let us ask no more than that it be beautiful and soft, strong and light, submissive to the least breath and ready to be transformed at its command. Nothing but an essential principle of humanity and loving-kindness can serve as a foundation for our actions, without ever confining them.

3

On the one hand, we have effort, nearly always vain; on the other, knowledge, which is the second look that makes us discern the ordinary, the commonplace, where at first we beheld beauty and charm. Nevertheless, let us worship effort and knowledge above all things.

Let us act as simply as the little wave that lifts itself and breaks against the rock. Others come after it; and it is their light kisses which, all unseen, end by biting into the granite.

THE END