Romain Rolland

“ Annette felt herself bricked in, like a stone in a wall! Sand and lime. Roman cement. Brissot mortar. . . .
She exaggerated the rigorousness of this life. Chance and the unexpected played their parts in it, as in all lives. The Mesdames Brissot were more redoubtable in words than in fact; they pretended to direct everything; but it was not impossible, if one attacked their weak spots, anointed them, flattered and worshipped them, to lead them by the nose; a cunning girl might have said to herself, while evaluating them at their proper worth:
"Keep on talking! I'll do things my own way!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then there remained only one solution,—marriage, monogamous love? Was that a possible dream, for an Annette?
Possible or not, it cost nothing to dream it, in advance. She did not deprive herself of it. She had arrived at the edge of the wood of adolescence, at that beautiful, final instant when, still savoring the shadow and the shelter of dreams, one sees opening before one, on the plain, long white roads in the sunlight. On which shall we imprint out steps? There is no haste to choose. The mind laughingly delays, and it chooses them all. ”

“ Imprudent Annette! Sylvie was not hampered, as she was, by her pride: any weapon was good enough for her, so long as she won. Annette, armored in pride, would have thought herself degraded had she allowed Tullio to glimpse a shadow of her desires. Sylvie was embarrassed by no such scruples; she was going to play with the gentleman the game that flattered him most. . . .
"Which do you prefer? Do you like to inspire a fine disdain, or admiration? . . ."
She knew man: the vain animal. Tullio adored incense, and she gave him full measure. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There, opposing forces: a moral pride, the passion for purity. And that other passion for independence, the imperious constraint of which Annette had already experienced in her union with Sylvie; she anxiously foresaw, too, that this passion for independence would some day engage in still more tragic conflicts with love. All this inner travail occupied her, filled her, during the long winter days. The soul, like a chrysalis encased in a cocoon of foggy light, was dreaming of its future, and indulging itself in its dream. ”

“ But just as one may bend one's head and squint one's eyes in order to harmonize the planes of a landscape, so Annette, when she looked at Roger's unpleasant traits, viewed them from an angle that softened them. It would have not been much beyond her to love even deformities: for one gives more of oneself when one loves the faults of one's beloved; in loving what is fine, one does not give, one takes. ”

“ Annette laughed awkwardly, and blushed more furiously. Sylvie flung herself on her neck.
"My dear little stupid, what a darling you are! No, you are priceless! Don't be hurt! I'm mistaken. I love you devotedly. Love your Sylvie a little. She's not much good, but such as she is she's yours. Annette, my ducky! Hold out your lips; I love you!"
Passionately Annette clasped her in her arms, taking her breath away. Sylvie, disengaging herself, observed in the tone of a connoisseur:
"You know how to kiss all right. Who taught you?" ”

“ Annette who was a bit of a pedant, who knew life through books—which did not however keep her from discovering it later (for life has not quite the same ring when it is heard outside of books) —Annette remembered those beautiful verses of Schillers:
"Oh, my sons, the world is full of lies and of hatred; everyone loves himself alone; all bonds formed by a fragile happiness are insecure. . . . That which caprice has joined together, that will caprice put asunder. Nature alone is sincere, it alone rests upon unshakable anchors. All else floats at the will of stormy waves. ”

“ It was a subject of laughing discussions with Sylvie, one of those heart problems that delight the heart of youth during periods of idleness and waiting, until the time comes when reality brusquely decides for you, without bothering about your elegant arrangements. Sylvie perfectly understood Annette's double need; but, so far as she was concerned, she could see no contradiction in it; one only had to do as she did: love when it pleased you, be free when it pleased you. ”

“ So, when I have once adopted Jean-Christophe, or Colas, or Annette Rivière, I am no more than the secretary of their thoughts. I listen to them, I see them act, I see through their eyes. In the measure that they come to know their own hearts and men, I learn with them; when they make mistakes, I stumble; when they recover themselves, I pick myself up, and we set off again upon the road. I do not say that this road is the best. But this road is ours. Whether or not Christophe, Colas and Annette are right, Christophe, Colas and Annette are life is not the least of justifications. ”

“ The two-wheeled cart flew over the white road, which rang under the hoofs of the spirited little horse, and the sharp air whipped Annette's red cheeks. She sat pressed against her young companion, who, even while he drove, laughed and talked with her, and, suddenly bending over her lips, took and gave a kiss in mid-flight. She did not resist. She loved him, she loved him! But this did not prevent her realizing that she would soon begin to judge him again, to judge herself. It is one thing to judge, and another to love. ”

“ The fierce sharpness of jealousy made each bluntly penetrate, at first glance, to the very depths of the other; to the faults and hidden vices unsuspected perhaps by their possessor. Sylvie recognized in Annette the demon of pride, inflexibility of principle, despotic violence, which had not yet, however, found occasion to exert itself. Annette recognized in Sylvie a practised sharpness and a smiling falseness. Later, when they loved each other, they would have given much to forget what they had seen. But for the instant their animosity gazed through a magnifying glass. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At home Marcel Franck had learned that there is a harmony of work and pleasure, and that the art of life depends upon their wise union. He cultivated this art no less than the others, in which he had become a discerning connoisseur. Attracted to the national museums he had made a precocious reputation as a writer on art. Quite as well as pictures, he knew how to observe living figures with his idle, penetrating, insolent, indulgent glance. And among the young men who were courting Annette, it was he who read her best. ”

“ Quite different was the end of Raoul Rivière. Stricken in the midst of a happiness that he felt sure of enjoying for a long time still, he brought to his departure no philosophy. He greeted his sufferings and the approach of death with cries of revolt. Until the supreme breath of a gasping agony, like that of a galloping horse that climbs a slope, he battled fearfully. Those frightful images were stamped in Annette's burning brain as though in wax. ”

“ Yet society and work occupied only the smallest portion of her time. Never had Annette's life been so peopled as now when she was alone. Through the long evenings and night hours, when sleep tosses the mind back into wakefulness, with its hallucinatory thoughts, as the withdrawing tide leaves on the shore a myriad of organisms torn from the nocturnal abysses of ocean,—Annette contemplated the ebb and flow of her interior sea, and the littered shore. ”

“ Already he loved her less. Roger, too, felt it with shame and annoyance; but he was unwilling to admit it. Fundamentally, he was shocked that Annette had given herself. . . . Ridiculous exigence of man! He desires the woman, and when she sincerely surrenders herself to him, he almost regards her over-generous act as an infidelity! . . .
Annette leaned towards him, lifted up his head, looked into his eyes for a long time, said nothing, and smiled a melancholy smile. When he felt this glance piercing him to his very soul, he sought to deceive her. He intended to appear thoroughly enamoured. ”

“ She had reached the time of life when one can live no longer without a mate; and woman even less than man, for in her it is not only the lover, but the mother also, that is awakened by love. She does not realize it: the two aspirations are confounded in a single sentiment. Annette, as yet without defining a single one of her thoughts, had a heart swollen with the need of giving itself to some human being, at once stronger and weaker than herself, who would take her in his arms and who would drink at her breast. ”

“ Sylvie was not insensible to the blessings of fortune. Without its being apparent, Annette's wealth had awakened in her quite a little temptation and envy. (One can't help it, even when one is not—almost not—envious! When one has a young body, filled with fine little desires, can one help thinking what one would do with wealth, and how much better one would know how to enjoy it than the stupid people who have had it thrust into their mouths, all nicely cooked! . . . ) She did not admit it to herself, but she begrudged Annette her fortune, a little. ”

“ She had an innate love of sewing; it was a physical pleasure for her to spend hours handling some piece of material, a dainty fabric, a silk muslin, folding it, gathering it, giving a touch to a knot of ribbons. And then her little noddle, which did not flatter itself, Heaven be praised, that it understood the ideas lodged in Annette's big brain, knew that here in her own domain, in the kingdom of chiffons, she had ideas too, enough and to spare. . . . Well then, could she give up her ideas? It is thought that a woman can enjoy no greater pleasure than to wear pretty dresses! ”

“ It is a pleasant wood fire, designed to distract the eye and to furnish company rather than to give warmth; for from the garden, through the open window, with the damp breeze of an early spring evening, there enters the melodious chattering of homing birds settling down to sleep. Annette dreams; but this time her eyes are open. She has recovered a foothold in her accustomed world. She is in her own house: she is Annette Rivière. ”

“ Annette saw Sylvie, almost as tall as herself (perhaps just as tall) but thin, slender of figure, with a head that was small for her body, now half-naked under her peignor, and a throat that was slight but plump, while her arms too were plump: balancing herself on her little rump, she sat with her hands clasped over her round knees. Round too were her forehead and her chin; her little nose turned up; her light brown hair grew low on the temples and curled over the cheeks, and little wandering hairs appeared on the nape and the white, very white and slender, neck. A hot-house plant. ”

“ One is lenient with those one does not hold so high. For her sister as for herself Annette had, justly or not—yes, justly!—very strict standards. Love for one person only seemed to her an aristocracy of the heart. Sylvie had fallen. Annette blamed her for it! "One love only? Love for you! . . . Jealous girl, you are lying to yourself! . . ." But the more jealous she was of Sylvie, the more she loved her; and the more irritated she became with her, the more she loved her. One can be so greatly irritated only by those one loves!
Her little sisters charm was calmly working. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In many things, Roger appeared to her still an uncertain child, under the thumb of his family, whom he religiously copied, with marked timidity of spirit, despite all his big words. Although she began to perceive a lack of consistency in his projects for social reform, and although she was no longer completely duped by his eloquent idealism, she bore him no grudge for that, for she knew that he was not trying to deceive her, and that he was his own first dupe; she was even ready, with a tender irony, to remove from his path all that might disturb the illusion by which he had to live. ”