The Choice of Life | Page 6

is the process in the case of those who are to remain in
our existence and blend with it for all time! It is then as though the
living reality at the very outset shattered the image formed by our
admiration and triumphantly took its place. In point of fact, it vivifies it
and, later, heightens it, colours it, ever enriching it with all the benefits
which the daily round brings to healthy minds. Those beings will
always remain with us, whatever happens; they will be more present in
their absence than things which are actually present; and the taste, the
colour, the very life itself of our life will never reach us except through
them.
I thought of all this vaguely. There were two women before me: one,
coarse and awkward, was obliterating the other, so beautiful amid the
ripe corn. Alas, should I ever see that other again? Was she not one of
those images which fade out of our remembrance, becoming ever paler
and more shadowy?
I felt a little discouraged. But perhaps the sadness of the hour was
influencing me? My feminine nerves must be affected by this damp,
warm mist. I went back to the house, doing my utmost simply to think
that I was about to undertake a "rather difficult" task.
Under the lamp, which the outside pall had caused to be lit earlier than
usual, and in the brightness of the red-and-white dining-room, decked
with gorgeous flowers, I discovered another side to my interview.
While I was describing it laughingly, my disappointment had seemed
natural; and, my eagerness being now reinforced by pity, a new fervour
inspired my curiosity.
In sensitive and therefore anxious natures, the very excess of the
sensation makes the impression received subject to violent reaction. It
goes up and down, down and up; and not until it slackens a little can
reason intervene and bring it to its normal level.
CHAPTER V

1
I have before me one of those little exercise-books whose covers are
gay with pictures of soldiers or rural scenes. It is Rose's diary. I
received it this morning, I have read it and it has left me both pleased
and touched.
It is a very simple and rather commonplace narrative, but one which, in
my eyes, has the outstanding merit of sincerity. To me it represents the
story of a real living creature, of a woman whom I saw yesterday,
whom I shall see to-morrow and whose suffering is but a step removed
from my happiness. The smallest details of that story have a familiar
voice and aspect....
Poor girl! Would not one think that an evil genius had taken pleasure in
playing with her destiny, like a child playing at ball? She was born of
poor parents. Her father, a carpenter, was a drunkard and frequently out
of work. He would often come home at night intoxicated, when he
would beat his wife and threaten to kill her. Coarse scenes, visions of
murder, screams, oaths and suppressed weeping were the first images
and the first sounds that stamped themselves on Rose's memory. One's
heart bleeds to think of those child-souls which open in the same hour
to the light of day and to horror, gaining their knowledge of life whilst
trembling lest they should lose it. We see them caught in a hurricane of
madness, like little leaves whirling in the storm; and to the end of their
days they will shudder at the thought of it.
She was left an orphan at the age of six. A neighbour offered to take
her, a wealthy and devout old man, who sent her to the Nuns of the
Visitation at the neighbouring town.
Of those quiet, uneventful years in the convent there is nothing in
particular to record. The child is perfectly happy, nor could she be
otherwise, for she is naturally reasonable and she is in no danger of
forgetting how kind fate has been to her. She pictures what she might
have been, she sees what she is; and her soul is full of gladness.
In January 18--, Rose is seventeen. She is to pass her examinations the

following summer. Her diary here gives evidence of a steadfast and
wholehearted optimism; she views the future with joyous eyes, or
rather she does not see it at all, which is the surest way of smiling at it
cheerfully. Her eyes are still the eyes of a child, to whom the
convent-garden is a world and the present hour an eternity.
Unfortunately, she had a rude awakening to life. The old man who had
adopted her died after a few days' illness, without having time to make
arrangements for her future. The good sisters at once wrote to her
grandmother; and, the next day, Rose was packed