Such was the dream I lived in. To-day, when I go over that time in retrospect, I ask myself whether I did not experience any anxiety. Not the least. Not for an instant did I see my sky overcast. I was harshly undeceived on one point though. In using it I found out how second-rate the English article was. It answered the purpose all right as long as I kept still, but light as it seemed it was necessary to exert my hip to work it, which made me walk with a kind of unsightly swing and very quickly tired me.
I got into the habit of going out during the best hours of the day while the fine weather lasted. Once outside, I walked slowly, putting on the air of a loiterer. As uninitiated passers-by might well think I was merely slightly lame, I now had to be doubly vigilant about avoiding the least contact with the crowd. Alas! I was very unsteady; twice I nearly fell when someone bumped into me, and people did not apologise; the mufti I had taken to again seemed to rob me of the right to any consideration.
Who would believe that I almost got as far as to regret the wooden stump? My last hopes were fixed on the American firm. I congratulated myself upon not having cancelled my order. A fellow-sufferer had just been introduced to me, who had been supplied[Pg 510] with a leg by them, and I marvelled at his young and supple carriage.
Why did I make a point of telling Jeannine of my disillusionment? Perhaps in order to get the answer, "What are you worrying about?" With ambitious coquetry I boasted in advance of the wonders expected from the other firm.
The reply was delayed for six days, and when it came was only four pages. The Landrys were putting the finishing touch to their preparations. There was not a single allusion to my infirmity, which I had told her was well on the way to being cured. No doubt she had made a rule never to broach the subject. Having once and for all given me proof of her tender pity she wished thenceforward to spare me the humiliation of feeling that she even thought of it.
Some days slipped by. I had written to her again in an affectionate tone. Though tempted to give her to understand that it would be less painful to show myself to her in a fortnight's time, I refrained from making such a mistake. That was a secondary matter. Only let her come! let her come! Oh, my love!
At this point, there was a long silence on her part. Must it be put down to the postal service again? No, we received our other letters from Paris quite regularly.
At the end of ten days I wrote her a line, saying that I was anxious. No answer—what could I make of it? I was seized with apprehension. Was she ill perhaps? But I should have been told about it. Had some accident happened to her? That was more likely. If so, what was it? My thoughts wandered, incapable of fixing themselves.
Then, one morning, just as I got out of bed, the waiter brought me a card. What power there is in[Pg 511] presentiments! As I took it from him I distinctly saw another, the one I had got from Jeannine at F—— the day before we started. I immediately thought—why, I wonder? that was the first, and this—this, the last!
It was not the Paris postmark. I undid it slowly, pretending—on whose account?—to be unmoved. One page, no more. It was headed Juan-les-Pins, December 17, 1914. Jeannine expressed her regret at the fact that they had been prevented from making the detour they intended, because the time-tables fitted in so awkwardly. Her grandmother was not very well, as a result of a great deal of worry, and found the journey long enough without adding to it. They had arrived the day before yesterday on the Riviera, which was not justifying its reputation, since the sun was absent. It lacked joyousness above everything. She added that she could not tear her thoughts away from the cold Northern regions, where so much youth, and all the promise of the future was succumbing. She ended by expressing the hope that we should see each other again some day. There was no allusion to our travelling plans, which I had mentioned to her several times.
I stood still, thunder-struck. I mechanically began to read over the lines again. The letters were dancing. I searched for an unexpected meaning in them. I refused to admit.... But the conviction was secretly gaining ground in my mind.
When I got to the signature again, there was not an unsteady stroke. The evolution was complete; I was ripe at last to understand. It was the emanation of a distant, a prodigiously distant being. How could I ever have thought—? My simplicity amazed me. Here, endless overwhelming forebodings occurred to my[Pg 512] mind. The imperceptibly, but totally changed tone of her letters; the note of friendship substituted for that of love; never a word in reference to my misfortune; the grandmother always refraining from adding a personal message, the long-delayed opportunity of seeing me again. Lastly, the brutal decision: these four sentences of dismissal.
I leant on the window looking over the hotel garden from the second floor. A bare lawn, and leafless trees. A cold and dreary wind was blowing, this winter morning. I pictured her, too, at her window opening on to the sea. My thoughts sought her thoughts. Yes, I wanted her to feel me moved by her cold, heart-breaking epistle at that moment. Ah, and if she could have read my heart, she would have seen that it held for her nothing but a desperate, resigned devotion.
Move her to pity? A dead ambition. Demand an explanation? What was the good? I saw it quite clearly. Curse her, blaspheme against her? How far that was from my thoughts. I did not accuse her of treachery. It seemed to me certain that at the time of the uplifting struggle she had dreamt of me as her bridegroom of to-morrow. But since I had been damaged. My God! What could I have reproached her with?
Had I still supposed myself worthy to inspire contentment in a youthful creature, inexperienced and perfect? When no engagement bound us! For on what foundations had I built? On nothing more than an odd avowal or two hidden here and there between the lines. Sand scattered by the wind! I might read over her letters, those written during the last few months and even those at the beginning. When once my own ardour had abated I should not find in[Pg 513] them either oath or promise; there was nothing there, nothing had ever been expressed but a sisterly affection.
It occurred to my mind that more than one girl of former days, brought up in the pious ideas of devotion and self-sacrifice, would have felt herself especially bound to proclaim as her fiancé the man who had suffered at the hands of Fate—inspirations to be respected, but, I admitted, out of date. This generation, less sensible—I have already said Jeannine was not the least—to the impress of religion, showed more common sense. It was permissible for a child of our century, however generous she might be, to trust to time to cure all heartaches, in others and in herself, to aspire to a happiness other than sacrifice.
Jeannine might have suffered, might be suffering still. Yes, she must regret that what was not, might not be. It was possible that she might carry away a picture of me which would illuminate a chaste corner of her memory: an idol that she had not been able to bring herself to destroy by seeing me again. It was Reason. I bowed to the sovereign I always recognised. Does one not usually end by repenting of a sacrifice? I glanced into t............