Romain Rolland

“ Philippe was burning with passion and resentment. But when his hard glance encountered Annette's, which did not avoid him, he perceived the suffering that she was firmly controlling. His anger melted, and in a softened voice he asked, "Why did you run away?"
"Because you are killing me."
"Don't you know what it is to love?"
"I do know, and that is why I ran away. I am afraid of hating you."
"Well, hate me, if you like. Hating is a way of loving." ”

“ It was painful to be a woman among women and to be obliged to hide one's feelings. People would only laugh at you if you showed your poor famished heart. Annette, when she was with other people, acted as if her love were an old story; she talked about her day, the people she had seen, what she had learned, said and done—in short, everything that was indifferent to her. (Oh, how indifferent!)
But at night, by herself, in her apartment, alone with her child, she could give free rein to the torment she felt. To her joy, too, her torrential passion. ”

“ She listened to him with bitterness, compassion, irony. He struggled to explain "this filthy madness that passes through your body." . . . Yes, this madness, she knew it, although it was not the time to tell him so. But he looked so wretched that, in spite of herself, she said to him, "I know. One is mad sometimes. What's done is done."
They continued on their way, without speaking, their hearts heavy, sad and embarrassed. Just as they were arriving at the spot where they had left Sylvie, Annette made a gesture as if she were about to hold out her hand to Leopold. ”

“ But when it does count, what a mysterious strength it has! It is a voice that whispers to us, "That other person is a part of me. Moulded in another shape, the substance is the same. I recognize myself in a different form and possessed by an alien soul."
And one wants to capture oneself in this usurper double attraction, a triple attraction: the attraction of resemblance, the attraction of opposition, of the war of conquest, which is not the least of the three.
What forces there were binding Annette and Sylvie together! Pride, independence, orderliness, will, the life of the senses! ”

“ Every new contact with life threw him into a clamorous delight. The enormous power of dreaming that belongs to every baby amplified his discoveries and prolonged the vibrations of happiness into veritable chimes of bells. Annette was never behind him; it was as if they were having a contest as to who should be the happiest and make the most noise. Sylvie said that Annette was crazy, but she would have behaved the same way herself. And after this tumult they would both have hours of absolute, delicious, exhausted silence. The little one, tired out after so much movement, slept obliviously. ”

“ The terror of this intuition, striking Annette at this moment when she was holding on to life with one weak hand, was a mortal blow to her.
All day she had been devastated by the furious return of her passion. Now that her decision had been made and carried out, the irreparable deed consummated, now that she had deliberately done her duty, she no longer had the strength to resist the attack of the enemy within. And the enemy had rushed upon her like a torrent.
She was a party to it. She had opened the gates to it. When all is lost, one has at least the right to enjoy one's despair! ”

“ There are no rights. Man has no right to anything. Nothing belongs to him. He has to conquer everything anew every day. That is the Law: "Thou shalt earn thy bread in the sweat of thy brow." Rights are the deceitful invention of a fallen combatant, to sanction the spoils of his past victory. Rights are nothing but the strength of yesterday, heaping up its treasures. But the living right, the only one, is work. The conquest of every day. . . . What a sudden vision of the human battlefield! It had no terrors for Annette. The courageous soul accepted this combat as a necessity ”

“ Such a constraint was against nature: Odette was in despair over it. She was prostrated till suddenly a peremptory reawakening of her childish gaiety and the need of movement threw her back again into her play.
Annette watched, divined, sometimes imagined, these miniature despairs, and she pityingly remembered her own. How she too had consumed herself with the fever of loving, desiring, tormenting herself, and for whom, for what? What purpose could this all serve? It was so out of proportion with the object, which was limited by the nature of things! What a squanderer of energy! ”

“ The most intellectual woman never completely forgets herself in what she is reading; the current within her is too strong. Annette interrupted her reading to open the flood-gate for a moment.
As she thus stopped, casting about her a rather troubled glance, her eye encountered that of Julien: it was fixed upon her. The image of Julien seemed to her a part of what was passing through her mind. Then, suddenly awakening—as when, in the morning, on her pillow, she found herself all at once in the midst of life—she rose gaily and stretched out her hand to him across the table. ”

“ Since the first time he had seen her, she had been for him the forbidden Paradise, that marvellous mirage, woman, which appears before the awakening glance of an innocent child. The fascinating image is shaped as much from what exists as from what does not exist, as much from what he sees as from what he does not see, what he does not know, what he fears and desires, what he wants and what he does not want, the terrifying attraction that thrills the adolescent body at the ecstatic, brutal appeal of nature. As for Noémi's features, he probably did not see one of them just as it was. ”

“ Annette smiled and said, "Customs are made by man. I know. He condemns the woman who dares to have her children outside of marriage without dedicating herself for life to the father of her children. But for many women this means slavery, for they do not love their husbands. Many a woman would remain free and alone with her little ones if she had the courage. I shall try to have it."
Sylvie said, with a touch of pity, "Poor innocent! Your life has been shielded from hardships by the double windows of this bourgeoisie that shuts you in with its prejudices—and its privileges also. ”

“ Oh, the wealth that comes to us from a loved one who cannot exist without us! Annette, with her stiffened breasts, at which the little animal greedily tugged, eagerly poured into the body of her son the flood of milk and hope with which she was swollen.
Then began to unroll the first touching cycle of the vita nuova, that discovery of the world, as old as the world, which every mother experiences again as she bends over the cradle. The tireless watcher awaiting with beating heart the awakening of her Sleeping Beauty. ”

“ Whoever has formed the habit finds it easy to live two lives at a time, one on a level with the ground, with other men, the other in the depths of the dream that is bathed by the inner sun. One neglects neither of them. One reads them both with a glance as a musician's eye reads a score. Life is a symphony: each moment of life sings in several parts. The reverberation of this warm harmony brought the color to Annette's face. ”

“ I haven't the strength. I am too much in love. He holds me completely. I hate him. I hate love. Why, why does one love?"
She stopped, exhausted, with her hunted eyes wandering, seeking to the right, to the left, a way of escape. They bowed their heads, these two women, enslaved under the yoke of the savage force.
Noémi took up her refrain in a dull, heavy tone, "Let me keep him."
Annette felt a will as tenacious and adhesive as a devilfish clinging to her limbs with its arms covered with suckers. ”

“ But whatever the depth may be, the sheet of silence is opaque: the eye cannot penetrate it. And the tormented spirit of the man has plenty of time to conjure up all sorts of alarming mysteries. The idea would never have entered the head of a Julien that he might be the author of them, that if a woman is silent it is often because she knows so well how little the man understands her. Annette's silence, which was ironical and a little weary on some days, tolerated a false interpretation of her feelings on the part of her lover, for she knew that he loved the false and did not love the true. ”

“ Then came those agonies that are part of the life of every woman who is made for love and to whom her share of love has been refused—agonies that come at this time of life when, if a love dies, she thinks that love itself is dying. On this night Annette, alone in her room, abandoned by her son, with her passion mutilated, suffered tortures in the destitution of her heart, and the haunting belief that love was lost forever, that life was lost without love, gripped her by the throat. ”

“ Something less or something more, incomparably more for a woman like Annette: a full, bold, intelligent life, not a life of repose slumbering in its security, but great winds, storms, action, struggles—with the world—with him—a life of trouble and fatigue—but together—life—a life worthy of being lived, with death at the end, when one was worn out and happy to leave the hard, fertile days behind, happy to have had them. ”

“ She imagined she had changed with maternity, and no doubt maternity was a great flame. But another flame still burned in her. She tried to forget it, because she was afraid of it; and she imagined that no one saw it. But this was not so; in spite of her, the fire of love burned on. And other people, if not she, were in danger of being its victims. Leopold's adventure had shown her this. It was hideous. She was revolted by it. In the disillusioned eyes of one who is not in love, the act of love seems a grotesque or disgusting bestiality. As Annette saw it, Leopold's attempt was both. ”

“ Love? Love for a man who could only be for her another cause for useless suffering, a man whom she was sure was dangerous, heartless, a man who could not belong to her, who belonged to someone else, a man she could not love because she loved someone else. Someone else? Yes, yes, she still loved Julien. Well, if she loved him, how was it possible for her to love another man? She did love him. . . . But how, how could her heart give itself to two persons at once? Give itself wholly to each without dividing itself? For when she gave her heart Annette gave it completely. ”

“ He was the darling of the workshop, petted by the customers and the workers, rummaging about on all fours, sitting under a table, collecting hooks and eyes and scraps of chiffon, winding skeins of silk, rolling balls, stuffing himself with sweets and smothered with kisses. He was a little boy of three or four, with golden auburn hair like Annette's, and he had been rather pale ever since his illness. Life for him was a perpetual spectacle. Sylvie could remember her own first experiences when, sitting under her mother's counter, she had listened to the customers. ”

“ She was not unaware of the austere life which her sister led; and she did not understand why Annette condemned herself to it. She knew her well enough to be aware that a woman of her type was not made for this moral restraint, this joyless life. How could she force her nature in this way? What obliged her to live like a widow? In the absence of a husband she had no lack of friends who would be happy to lighten her troubles. If she had agreed to this, Sylvie would perhaps have respected her sister less, but she would have felt closer to her. ”

“ With these words she could surmount all her remorse. . . . Was she necessary to Philippe? He had said so during the first days when he had wanted to win her. He no longer said it, and Annette would have liked to hear it again and again, to be convinced. She saw him full of himself, used to working alone, fighting alone, extricating himself alone, putting all his pride into it; he would have felt humiliated if he had had to seek help. So she said to herself, "What am I good for?" It is the bounty of love not only to give us faith in someone else but to give us back faith in ourself. ”

“ Philippe would not have scrupled to leave Noémi in ignorance. He did not respect her enough to feel that he owed her the truth. But if he was obliged to tell it, he meant to tell it without stopping to consider her. He was a terrible man, terribly without kindness when a passion had seized upon him. Nothing else existed. The love that he had felt for Noémi was that of a master for a valuable slave, and indeed she had never been anything more than this for him. Like many women she had adapted herself to this; when the slave holds the master nothing exceeds her power. ”

“ People have little respect for those who are hungry. And then the poor souls whom she supplanted treated her as an intruder who was robbing them. They knew they were unjust; but it is comforting to be unjust when you are a victim of injustice. Annette became familiar with that greatest of all wars—the war of the workers, not against nature or circumstances, nor against the rich for taking their bread away from them—the war of the workers against the workers who are snatching the bread from each other, the crumbs that have fallen from the table of the rich or from that sordid Crœsus, the State. ”

“ Very few had been able to see what lay hidden beneath the mocking mask of old Rivière, the drama concealed by that jesting cynicism, that appetite for play-acting which is sometimes characteristic of conquering spirits. Raoul had had his dark depths which he never revealed. They exist more often than one might suppose under the Gallic laugh. One keeps them to oneself. Annette, who had her own secrets, had never told them to her father, and his secrets she had known no more than she knew those of her son. They all remained walled up in their own inner lives. ”

“ Annette made a gesture of repulsion.
Noémi's fury flashed up again. "Do you think it doesn't disgust me? You disgust me. I detest you. But I don't want to lose him."
Annette moved away from Noémi and said, "I do not detest you. You are suffering and I am suffering. But it is base to divide in love. I am willing to be the victim. I am willing to be the executioner. I am not willing to be base. To save what I love I am not willing to surrender half of it. I give everything. I want everything. ”

“ She lived in a plenitude of busy fatigue that was a blessing to her at first, but that gradually became an obscure weariness. One's strength is used up, one's soul wanders aimlessly: it does not stay where one has left it. It follows its way like a sleep-walker, and when it awakens it does not know where it is. Annette woke up one day conscious of a load of fatigue that had been accumulating for months, and an indefinable shadow mingled with the joy that dwelt in her. ”

“ Like a good girl, Sylvie forced the ungracious child to kiss Annette. Annette found little joy in these forced embraces; Sylvie found more. She did not tell herself that she was stealing from the garden of the poor, and that later she would royally return some of the fruit. But what one keeps to oneself in order not to load oneself with troublesome scruples, one only tastes the better with one's closed mouth. And although she had no unkind feeling, Sylvie found more pleasure in making the child fondle her and in displaying her power over him in Annette's presence. ”

“ I try to please the 'other person,' to be like the image of what he wants me to be, and this ends badly. For in renouncing too much of one's nature one loses one's self-respect and cannot live any more; or one revolts and causes suffering. No, I am an egoist, Sylvie. I was made to live alone."
(Although she was not in any sense lying, she was uttering pretexts that masked the truth from herself.)
"You amuse me," said Sylvie. "You are the last woman to live without love."
"I hate it," said Annette. ”

“ Sylvie arrived just in time to welcome him. In spite of her suffering, which drew from her an occasional groan—no tears, Annette, interested, absorbed, was a little disappointed to find, surprisingly, that she was more present at the event than the cause of it. The great emotion she had expected had not appeared. When travail begins, one is caught in a trap. No means of escaping: one has to go through with it. One resigns oneself and bends all one's strength to reach the end as quickly as possible. One's mind is clear, but one's energy is entirely occupied in enduring the pain. ”

“ Annette found it everywhere about her, often pathetic, sometimes absurd. For as a good observer she incessantly explored faces and souls every day and all day long; she distracted herself from her own troubles by throwing herself into those of others. Perhaps curiosity prevailed over pity during this period when her heart was petrified (as she thought) by the spectacle of so much suffering, and especially so many defeats and abdications. ”

“ But nothing could shake Julien's good will, firmly resolved as he was not to see anything that would disturb him. Solitary spirits who distrust the world lose all discernment, all desire to be discerning, the moment they abandon their distrust in favor of some chosen soul: they are liberated. Julien's mind, ingenious in deceiving itself, arranged to its satisfaction the memories it brought back from each of its visits: everything that Annette had said and everything that surrounded her. ”

“ As the body of the child develops, the shadow increases with it and covers the light. As he climbs, he turns his back on the sun; he seems most a child when he is least one; and when he is grown-up, his view is more limited. For the moment Marc still enjoyed a magic clairvoyance of which he was completely unaware. Never had he been closer to Annette; not for many years would he be so close again.
Towards the end of this period the attraction she had for him became stronger than his distrust. ”

“ How lacking in affection he was! Why was he so hard? One would have said at moments that he was angry with her. Why? Because she loved him too much?
"Yes, that is my weakness, loving too much. People do not need it. It bores them. . . . My son does not love me! He is only too anxious to leave me. My son is so little my son! He feels nothing of what I feel. He feels nothing!"
During these very days Marc's young heart was aflame with love and poetry. He had fallen madly in love with Noémi. ”