The Choice of Life | Page 5

you look sweet and kind?... Make haste and tell
me all about yourself...."
But she does not answer. She stares at me with wide-open eyes; and my
impulsive phrases strike with such force against her stupefaction that
each one of them seems by degrees to fall back upon myself. I in my
turn am left utterly dumfounded; she is so ill at ease that I myself
become nervous; her astonishment embarrasses me; I secretly laugh at
my own discomfiture; and I end by asking, feebly:

"What's your name?"
"Rose."
"Rose ... Roseline.... My name is...."
And I burst out laughing. We were really talking like two children
trying to make friends. I threw my arm round her waist and put my lips
to her cheek. I loved its milky perfume. My kiss left a little white mark
which the blood soon flushed again.
She told me that she had seen me from a distance and that she had
come running up without stopping. I was careful not to ask her what
she wanted to tell me, for I knew that she had obeyed my wishes rather
than her own; and I led her towards the house:
"Rose, my dear Rose.... I know that you are unhappy."
She stops, gives me a quick look and then turns red and lowers her eyes.
Thereupon, so as not to startle her, I ask her about her work and about
the farm.
Rose answers shily, in short sentences, and we walk about in the garden.
From time to time, she stops to pull up a weed; methodically, she
breaks off the flowers hanging faded from their stalks; occasionally,
she makes a reference, full of sound sense, to the care required by
plants and vegetables. But my will passes like an obliterating line over
all that we say, over all that we do; and, while Rose anxiously tries to
fill the silence, I lie in wait, ready for a word, a sigh, a look that will
enable me to go straight to the heart of that soul, which I am eager to
grasp even as we take in our hand a mysterious object of which we are
trying to discover the secret.
Alas, the darkness between us is too dense and there is only the light of
her beautiful eyes, those sad, submissive eyes, to guide my pity! Our
conversation is somewhat laboured; the girl evades any direct question;
and any opinion which I venture to form can be only of the vaguest.

She seems to me to be lacking in spirit, of a nervous and despondent
temperament, but not unintelligent. I know nothing of her mental
powers. We sometimes see an active intelligence directing very inferior
abilities, just as our good friend the dog is an excellent shepherd to his
silly, docile flock. In her, the most ordinary ideas are so logically
dovetailed that one is tempted to accept them even when one hesitates
to approve them. Her mind must be free from baseness, for throughout
our conversation she made no effort to please me. Would it not have
needed a very quick discernment, a very uncommon shrewdness to
know so soon that she would please me better like that?
That was what I said to myself by way of encouragement, so great was
my haste to pour into her ears those instinctive words of hope and
independence which it was natural to utter. And, let them be premature
or tardy, barren or fruitful, I could not refrain from speaking them....
But suddenly she released herself: it was already past the time for
milking the cows; they must be waiting for her. Nevertheless, she gave
a shrug of the shoulders which implied that she cared little whether she
was late or not; and, with a "Good-bye till to-morrow!" she went off
heavily, making the ground ring with the steady tramp of her wooden
shoes.
For an instant I stood motionless in the orchard. Her shrill voice still
sounded in my ears; and the constraint of her attitude oppressed me.
The road by which she had just gone was now hardly visible. A fog
rose from the sea and gradually blotted out everything. The plains, the
hills, the cottages vanished one by one; and already, around me, veils
of mist clung to the branches of the apple-trees. At regular intervals, the
boom of the fog-horn startled the silence.
2
Those who pass through our life and who will simply play a part there
take shape in successive images. The first, a fair but illusive picture,
fades away as another sadly obtrudes itself; and another, paler yet,
comes in its turn; and thus they all vanish, becoming less and less
distinct until the end, until the day when a last, vague outline is fixed in

our memory.
How different