Annie Vivanti

“ Florian!... Claude!" The beloved names were sobbed out in accents of despair, and Louise must needs comfort her as best she could, smoothing the tumbled locks, kissing the flushed, wet face, and finally herself leading her out into the garden again. Mireille went lightly and silently beside them, like a pale seraph walking in her sleep.
It was not only to console Chérie that Louise smiled in those first days of exile. Hope, like a shy bird, had entered into her heart.
There was better news from the Continent; all Europe had taken up arms and was fighting for them and with them. ”

“ It was at this moment that the distant booming sound fell also on their ears.
"What was that?" asked Mireille.
Chérie put her arm round the child. "Nothing," she said. "Let us go up and pack our things." And as Louise still stood like a statue staring at the door with the lantern in her hand she cried, "Loulou, go up to your room and collect what you will take with you in the morning."
And Loulou slowly, walking like a somnambulist, obeyed.
How difficult to choose, from all the things we live among, just what we can take away in our two hands! ”

“ We cannot stay here alone!"
"Yes ... let us go ..." stammered Louise. "But who will carry our things?"
"What things? We take no things. We are fugitives, Loulou! Fugitives!... Quickly—quickly. Take your money and your jewels—nothing else."
"Quickly, quickly," echoed the whimpering Mireille.
"If we are fugitives," sobbed Louise, looking down at her floating chiffon gown, "we cannot go out into the world dressed like this."
"We cannot stop to change our clothes ... we must take our cloaks and dark dresses with us," cried Chérie. "Only make haste, make haste!" ”

“ Amour, cramped and disgusted in his creaky luncheon basket, was travelling away in the darkness to the heart of the Ardennes.
After the first moment of dismay everybody was cross with everybody else.
"It's all his own fault," said Chérie, who was tired and hungry. "He might have barked. He knew perfectly well that we were getting out."
"Haven't we taught him to pretend he is sandwiches when we're travelling?" sobbed Mireille indignantly. "How can you be so unjust?"
"Never mind, Mirette," said her father; "don't cry. We will telegraph to Marché to have him stopped and sent back. ”

“ Her lips seemed mute, her eyes seemed distant and unseeing as those of the mindless, wandering Mireille.
At last she rose, and stood facing Louise, her face grave, inexorable, unflinching.
"Louise, say no more. No human reasoning, no human law, no human sanction or prohibition can influence me. No one may judge between a woman and the depths of her own body and soul; in so grave a matter each must decide according to her own conscience. What to the one is shame, hatred, and horror, to the other is joy, wonder, and love. ”

“ That was the key to all her own strange and marvellous sensations, to the throb and the thrill within her! Maternity.
She stood motionless, amazed. A shaft of sunlight from the open window beat upon her, turning her hair to gold and her wide eyes to pools of wondering light. Such wonder and such light were about her that Louise gazed in awed silence at the ethereal figure, standing with pale hands extended and virginal face upturned.
She seemed to be listening.... To what voice? What annunciation did she harken to with those rapt eyes?
Louise called her by her name. But Chérie did not answer. ”

“ It is weakness and shock. It is what the good English doctor who has been called in to see us all—especially to try and cure Mireille—calls "psychic trauma." He says Mireille is suffering from psychic trauma; that means that her soul has been wounded. Sometimes I feel as if my soul had not only been wounded but that it had been killed—murdered while I was unconscious. I feel as if it were only a ghost, a spectre that resembles me and bears my name, but not the real Chérie, that wanders in this English garden, that speaks and smiles, kisses and comforts Louise, prays for Claude and for Florian. ”

“ I mean, what shall we do, the baby and I?"
"What can you do?" said Louise bitterly.
Chérie bent over her child. "I wish we could hide" ... she said in a low voice, "hide ourselves away where nobody would ever see us."
Louise made no reply. She sat down, turning away from Chérie, and tried not to feel pitiless. "Harden not your hearts ... harden not your hearts ..." she repeated to herself, striving to stifle the sense of implacable rancour, of bitter hatred which hurt her own heart, but which she could not overcome.
"Mireille will come here!" Chérie repeated under her breath. ”

“ Chérie sighed. "I cannot help what they say."
"And when Claude returns, Chérie! When Claude returns...."
Chérie bowed her head and did not answer.
Louise moved nearer to her. "And have you forgotten Florian? Florian, who loves you, and hoped to make you his wife?..."
The tears welled up into Chérie's eyes, but she was silent.
Louise's voice rose to a bitter cry. "Chérie! Think of the brutal hands that bound you, of the infamous enemy that outraged you. Think, think that you, a Belgian, will be the mother of a German child!" ”

“ When she sat alone face to face with Mireille their eyes would gaze into each other with the same fixity and stupefaction; but while the gaze of the child was clear and vacant, the eyes of the mother were wild and wide with some dark horror and despair. Fear—fear—the mad affrightment of a lost spirit haunted her, and with the dawn of each new day seemed to take deeper root in her being, seemed to rise from ever profounder depths of woe and horror.
"Loulou! dearest! What is the matter? Are you ill?" Chérie asked her one morning, noting her lagging footsteps and her deathly pallor. ”

“ Chérie laughed and looked up adoringly at her big brother. "Is he not always affectionate?" she asked.
"Not so dreadfully," replied Mireille, in her matter-of-fact tones; and then they all three laughed.
Frieda, hurrying behind them in the dark with the books, the parasols, and the tennis-rackets, hated them for their laughter.
Louise Brandès, a slim white figure in the moonlight, awaited them at the door. She kissed Mireille and Chérie and greeted Frieda kindly; then she made them all drink hot milk and sent them to bed. ”

“ Then began for Louise the heartbreaking pursuit of liberation, the nightmare, the obsession of deliverance.
All was vain. Nature pursued its inexorable course.
Then she determined that she must die. There was no help for it—she must die. She dreaded death; she was tied to life by a two-fold instinct—her own and that of the unborn being within her. How tenacious was its hold on life! It would not die and free her. It clung with all its tendrils to its own abhorred existence. ”

“ No; the child would live; live to do harm and hurt; to bring sorrow and shame on them all. Live to keep the flame of hatred alight in their hearts, to remind them for ever of the foul wrong they had suffered....
Chérie had felt Louise's eyes upon her and turned to her quickly. Had not her sensitive soul perceived a passing breath of pity and of tenderness? Surely Louise would turn to her now with a word of consolation and compassion? Perhaps the sight of her helpless infant had touched Louise's heart at last.... ”

“ With a gasp Louise felt Mireille falter on the threshold ... she stood breathless and watched her. Surely, surely she must recognize this scene: there to the right, the large Flemish fireplace; there beyond it the old-fashioned oak settee; and there the shallow flight of stairs, with the wrought-iron banisters running right down into the room, facing the door with the red-tapestried curtains.... Surely, with this scene of her martyrdom brought suddenly before her, the veil of unconsciousness would be rent from her soul. Louise felt it. Louise knew it. ”

“ Louise had turned deathly pale, but Mireille, unharmed and undaunted, signalled to her from the other end of the room, signifying defiance by shrugging her shoulders and sticking her tongue out at the spruce, straight back of the enemy.
He now stared at Chérie again, and under his insistent insolent gaze she trembled like an aspen leaf.
"Why do you tremble?" he asked. "Are you afraid of me?"
"Yes," murmured the girl, drooping her head.
He laughed. "Why? I'm not a wild beast, am I? ”

“ Chérie had watched him solemnly enough in the beginning, but when he caught her eye and dropped the egg something seemed to leap into her throat and strangle her. When a tennis-ball dropped from his sleeve and he had to crawl after it under the grand piano while the Union Jack hidden up his back slowly unfurled itself behind him, she felt that she must laugh or die.
She laughed; she laughed, hiding her face in her hands, her forehead and neck crimson, her slim shoulders heaving, while Loulou nudged her fiercely and whispered, "Ne ris pas!" ”

“ Then Louise forced herself to remember what she would have given her life to forget. With eyes closed, with shuddering soul, she compelled herself to live over again the darkest hours of her life.
... Before daybreak on the 5th of August. The house was silent. The invaders had gone. Louise, a livid spectre in the pale grey dawn, had staggered from her room—passing the dead Amour on Chérie's threshold—and had stumbled down the stairs. There at the foot of the wrought-iron banister lay Mireille, her mouth open, her breath coming in gasps, like a little dying bird. ”

“ Now there was the tramp of many feet on the stairs, and loud voices and the clanking of spurs and sword.
As if the imminence of their fate had suddenly invested her with new strength and dignity, Louise stood up, tall and tragic, between the two trembling girls. She crossed herself slowly and devoutly; slowly and devoutly she traced the sign of the cross on Chérie's forehead and on Mireille's. Then with arms entwined they stood motionless. They were ready to die. ”

“ Chérie passed the bicycle shop and waved a friendly hand to Cyrille Wibon, who was kneeling before his racing Petrolette and washing its shining nose with the tenderness of a nurse and the pride of a father.
"Remember! the two bicycles at eleven, on the sands," cried Chérie in Flemish, and Cyrille lifted a quick forefinger to his black hair, and nodded. Chérie ran on, crossed the wide promenade, and skipped down the shallow flight of steps leading to the sands, those vast sweeping sands of Westende that begin and end in the wide, wild dunes. ”

“ I stand between them, and they make me drink again—cool frothing champagne and hot burning brandy—until I am so giddy that the floor heaves under my feet.
I cry and cry. I call Louise ... she is gone from the room. I see Mireille crouching in a corner staring at me, white and terrified. I call her—"Mireille! Mireille!" She springs up and rushes to me, she screams like a maddened animal, and the light-eyed man catches her by the wrists and laughs. ”

“ Louise thought she was dead.
Ah! how had she found the strength to lift her, to call her, to drag her back to life, weeping over her and Mireille, gazing with maddened despair from one unconscious figure to the other?... She had dressed them, she had dragged and carried them down the stairs at the back of the house. Should she call for help? Should she go crying their shame and despair down the village street? No! no! Let no one see them. ”

“ She hurried forward through the darkening lanes, and soon joy awoke again and sang within her. Yes! There they stood at the open gate, the two beloved waiting figures—the taller, Chérie, with her arm round the slender form of Mireille. Louise ran towards them with buoyant step.
"Louise!" cried Chérie. "Where have you been? How quickly you walk! How bright and happy you look! Why, I could see your smile shining from far off in the darkness!"
Louise kissed the soft, cold cheeks of both; she took Chérie's warm hand and the chilly little hand of Mireille and went with them towards the house. ”

“ After the nightmare-days of hopelessness and despair, behold! life was to be renewed, retrieved, redeemed. Like a grey cloak of misery her anguish fell away from her; she stepped forth blissful and entranced into the pathway of her reflowering youth.
And with the certainty of this deliverance came the faith and hope in all other joys. Claude would return to her; Belgium would be liberated and redeemed. Mireille would find her speech again! Yes, Mireille would find her sweet, soft smile and her sweet shrill laughter. ”

“ Her eyes had a roving, frightened look, and every now and then a nervous spasm contracted her face.
"Oh my dear, my dear," said Louise, embracing her with tears.
Locked in Madame Doré's bedroom—for the terrorized woman had the obsession of being constantly watched and spied upon—Louise heard her friend's tragic story and recounted her own. With pitying tears Madame Doré caressed Mireille's soft hair and assured Louise that it would be a joy for her and for Jeannette to keep her with them.
"Dear little Jeannette!" exclaimed Louise. "How glad I shall be to see her again. Is she well?" ”

“ They dropped the stretcher and stood silently looking down at those two motionless figures in their fraternal embrace, whose attitude told their tale. Florian's hand, holding the open brandy-flask, lay on the dead German's breast; the ghastly dead face of their comrade was pillowed easily on the enemy's encircling arm.
Something rose in the throat of the two who gazed, and the younger one—the one who wrote Latin verse—bent down and laid his hand lightly, as if invoking a blessing on Florian's pale forehead. Then he turned with a start to his companion. "He is alive!" ”

“ Are they to be left to die? And the dog——
"Of course we must take Amour," said Chérie.
"Of course," said Loulou, going through the rooms like a wandering spirit, picking things up and putting them down in a bewildered manner.
A clock struck eleven. Mireille, still in her pink frock, had clambered upon her mother's bed and was nearly asleep.
Boom! Again that low, long sound, rumbling and grumbling and dying away.
"It is nearer," breathed Louise. And even while she said it the sound was repeated, and it was nearer indeed and deeper, and the windows shook. Mireille sat up with wide, shining eyes. ”

“ Little César is shouldering a wooden gun and points it at them. In a moment three of the men are off their horses.... The children must be punished.
The children are punished.
... Then the men ride on. But the torture of those children has reminded me of Mireille. "Mireille—" I cry. "We must go back and fetch Mireille!"
"Hush! Mireille is here."
Mireille is here! She is not dead? Then who is dead?
"No one, no one is dead," says Louise, "we are all three here."
No—no—no! Somebody is dead. Somebody has been killed, I know it. I know it. Who is it? Is it I—is it Chérie who is dead? ”

“ The sacerdotal authority wielded its powerful sway.
"A crime! a crime!" gasped Louise, and the convulsive tremor seized her anew. "Surely it is a greater crime to drive me to my death."
"The laws of nature are sacred," said the vicar, his brow flushing, a diagonal vein starting out upon it; "they may not be set aside. All you can do is humbly to submit to the Divine law." ”

“ No, she is cruel, she is like a fury when she looks at the child. Oh, God! what will our life be in the midst of so much scorn and hatred? Not that I care about myself; but what will become of the little child? Perhaps I should have done as Louise did.... I should have torn it from me before it came to life."
A deep shudder ran through Florian.
"But I seemed to hear a voice in my soul—the very voice of God, calling aloud to me: 'Thou shall not kill.'"
Florian rose to his feet and looked down at the bowed figure. This was Chérie, the laughing, dimpling, blushing Chérie—his betrothed!... ”