The Choice of Life Part 22

Oh, I know no more exquisite surprises than those chance meetings which suddenly bring you a friend at a turning in life's road! It is like a charming landscape which one has seen in a dream and which one now finds in reality, without even having hoped for it. You speak, laugh, recognise each other and above all you are astonished and go on being astonished, adorably and shamelessly, like children.

What we had to say was all interwoven, as though we were both drawing on the same memories. We were speaking of those friends of a day whom accident sometimes gives us and whom the very briefness of the emotion impresses deeply on our heart. They are there for ever, in a few clear, sharp strokes, like sketches:

"For instance, you go on a matter of business to see somebody whom you don't know. You chafe with annoyance as you cross the threshold. In spite of the material duty which you are performing, you consider that it is so much time wasted. Then, for some unknown reason, the atmosphere seems kindly. You find familiar things in the room where you are waiting: a picture which you might have chosen yourself, books which you know and like, things which look as if your own hand had arranged them.

And you forget everything. With your forehead against the pane, you look at the roofs of the houses, at the streets, at all that little scene which is the constant companion of an existence which you do not know and with which you are about to come into touch; and your heart beats very fast, for a sort of foresight tells you that a friend is going to enter the room."

"That's quite true; and sometimes even we have already met him at some house or other; but then his mind displayed itself in a special att.i.tude, inaccessible, motionless, lifeless, like a thing in a gla.s.s case. Now, we see him before us, in his own surroundings; and everything is changed. He has a smile which is made of just the same quality of affection as our own, a look instinct with the same sort of experience, a laugh that cheerfully faces like dangers, a mind responding to the same springs. And we talk and are contented and happy; and, when the sun enters at the window or when the fire flickers merrily in the hearth, we can easily picture spending the rest of our life there, in gladness and comfort. Anything that the one says is received by the other with an exclamation of delight. Yes, we have felt and seen things in the same way; and this little fact, natural though it may seem, is so rare that it appears extraordinary!"

With an abrupt movement that must be customary with him, my companion shook his head to fling back his thick hair, which darkened his forehead whenever he leant forward:

"And very often," he said, "you don't see each other again, or at least you don't see each other like that, because time is too swift and because everybody has to go his own road."

The bright shaft of sunlight was still between us. It came now from a higher point of the little window. In the shimmering dust, I conjured up the faces of scarce-seen friends. There were some whose features had become almost obliterated; but beyond them, as one sees an image in a crystal, I clearly perceived the ideas, the life, the soul that had for a moment throbbed on exactly the same level as my own.

I replied, in a very low voice:

"We remain infinitely grateful to people who have given us such minutes as those!"

And then, certain of hearing myself echoed, I cried, delightedly:

"Egoists should always be grateful and responsive, for grat.i.tude is nothing but happiness prolonged by thought...."

"Yes, that is the whole secret of the responsive soul: to have sufficient impetus not to stop the sensation at the place where the joy itself stops."

"To have simply, like the runner, an impetus that carries us beyond the goal...."

4

Thus were our remarks unrolled like the links of one and the same chain; and yet how different were our two existences! His was devoid of all restlessness and agitation; and mine was still in need of it. His intelligence was active, but not at all anxious to appear so. For him, meditation was the great object; and, when I expressed my admiration of a modesty impossible to my own undisciplined pride, he replied, in all simplicity:

"Do not look upon this as modesty. The over-modest are often those whose pride is too great to find room on the surface."

"If I were a man or an older woman than I am," I said, laughingly, "I would choose your destiny; but, for the time being, I feel a genuine need to satisfy my youth and to give it a few of the little pleasures that suit it."

He tried to jest, like most men who disapprove of the trouble which we take to please them by making ourselves prettier or more brilliant; but at heart he was as fond as myself of feminine cajolery and frivolity.

"You are full of pride," I exclaimed, "when you have accomplished some n.o.ble action or produced some rare work of art; then why should not women be happy at realising in their persons consummate beauty and grace? It is very probable that, if Plato or Socrates had suddenly been turned into beautiful young creatures, their destiny would have been different from what it was; it is even exceedingly probable that wisdom would have prompted them very often to lay aside their writings and come and contemplate their charms in the admiration of men!"

I quoted the words uttered by a woman who had known and loved admiration in her day:

"If life were longer, I would devote as many hours to my body as I now do to my mind; and I should be right. Unfortunately, I have to make a choice; and my very love of beauty makes me turn to that which does not fade...."

5

We should certainly have gone on talking for hours and without tiring; but suddenly we both together remembered that Rose must be waiting for me at my house and I rose to go.

As I did so, I said:

"I happen not to know your Christian name. What is it?"

"Floris."

Floris! That name, so little known in France but very frequent in Holland, surprised me; and I had some difficulty in not saying:

"Then you are not a Frenchman?"

But all that I said was:

"Floris, you shall have your Rose!"

CHAPTER XII

1

Going down the stairs, I laughed to myself and said:

"It is really one of love's miracles, that that man should be interested in Rose. And yet, to a philosopher, does not that beautiful girl offer a very unusual sense of security? From the point of view of the life which I had planned for her, she is a failure; but will she not be perfect in the eyes of a lover, of a man who expects nothing from her but an occasion for dreams and pleasure?"

Filled with gladness, I hastened my steps. Although it was the end of winter, it was still freezing; and it was pleasant to hear the sound of my feet on the hard ground. I also noticed the noises of the street: they were sharp and distinct; and in the crisp air things were all black and white, as though etched in dry-point.

For a moment, my dream vanished; then suddenly I became aware of it and I rifled a shop of its flowers and jumped into a cab in order to be with my Roseline the sooner.

2

Rose and Floris! The delicious combination filled my heart to bursting-point. Is it not always some insignificant little accident that sets our impressions overflowing? Like a child, at the last minute, I had felt a wish to know what he was called; and I was delighted to find that it was a name full of grace and colour. Now all my thoughts cl.u.s.tered around those harmonious syllables. Those remarkable eyes, that dark hair with its faint wave, that sensitive heart, that profound intellect, powerful and yet a little tired, like a tree bowed down with fruit: all this went through life under the name of Floris!

Then I saw once more his face, his gentleness, his profound charm; and I never doubted the girl's secret a.s.sent. In my fond hope, I went to the length of imagining that she had wished to choose her life for herself, independent of my influence; that she had at last understood that, in order to please me, she must first a.s.sert her liberty, without fear of hurting or vexing me. It was an illusion, certainly; but there are times when joy thrusts aside reason in order to burst into full blossom, even as in moments of sorrow our despair often goes beyond reality to drain itself to the last drop in one pa.s.sionate outpouring.

3

Rose was sitting in the drawing-room, waiting for me. I rushed in like a mad thing, without knowing what I was doing. My laughter, my flowers, my words all came together and fell upon her like a shower of joy. In one breath I told her of my indiscretion of the night before, of those stolen sensations, of my anguish, of my life at a standstill, waiting on theirs, of my delightful talk with Floris, of the sympathy between us and lastly of my conviction that happiness was being offered to her here and now.

Then I noticed that she said nothing; and, begging her pardon for my incoherence, I tried to express in serious words the future that awaited her. But all those glad impressions had dazzled me; I was like some one who comes suddenly from the bright sunshine into a room. Shadows fell and rose before my brain as before eyes that have looked too long at the light; and I could do nothing but kiss her and repeat:

"Believe me, happiness lies there! Seize it, seize it!"

At last she murmured, wearily:

"No, I can't do it."

I questioned her, anxiously: