Stories in Yellow, Black,
White, Blue, Violet
and Red

It is now some time since I wrote, somewhat vaguely (with reference to one of d’Annunzio’s books) that a novel is a poem and should be conceived and executed as such if it is to prove of worth.

At that time I said:

“The novel is based upon the same esthetic as the poem; the original novel was composed in verse: for example, the Odyssey, a novel of adventure; the Aeneid, a chivalrous romance; the first French novels, as everybody knows, were poems, and it is only at a fairly late day that they were transposed into prose to adapt them to the indolence and the ignorance of a larger reading public. From this origin the novel inherits the possibility of a certain nobility, and any genuine writer, if he concerns himself with it, will restore that nobility to the form: whom would one wish to convince that Don Quixote is not a poem, that Pantagruel is not a poem, that Salammbo is not a poem? The novel is a poem; the novel that is not a poem does not exist.”

Flaubert had not yet taught me, through the letters that narrate the arduous composition of Madame Bovary, that one must “endow prose [Pg 6]with the rhyme of verse (leaving to it, however, its distinctly prosaic character) and write to ordinary life as one writes history or epic.” Upon thinking this over I found that Flaubert carried a bit too far the idea that we must achieve a literary prose whose beauty may be fashioned only of words and rhythm, the rhythm being primordial. The method that he prescribed for the novel I believe suited likewise to the play, the tale, even when it is but an anecdote—almost all form of composition—even the simple article done for the morning-paper. There is no inferior art. An article may be a poem from the moment one has assigned to it the rhythm against which it will dance its brief pavan. Once the rhythm has been found, all is found, for the idea incorporates itself into the tempo, and the ball of yarn or silk is formed almost without the intervention of any consciousness of a task.

The tale, it seems to me, demands a special condition: in order to write it one must possess the illusion, no matter how fleeting, of being happy; a merry afternoon is enough. And this relates it more closely to the poem than any reasoned-out theory could do. To be happy—that is to say, to have enjoyed a flower, the flower of one’s choice, or the bright glance of [Pg 7]certain eyes: then one becomes interested in the games of others. In fact, when one is happy, or almost so, one can no longer stay inside, where one sees well only through desire. A tale is a stroll.

Almost all the stories that you are about to read were written in a single breath, save the polishing touches, the expansion of too slender parts, and excisions. Thus there comes, at certain times, a moment when the breath runs short. One lays the work aside for the following day, and this is a pity, for dreams trouble one’s days.

I do not write all this to instruct in a method a public that cares very little for methods. The stream of these notes flowed one evening in a few moments on to a stray sheet of paper.

I clarified it, at first for my own pleasure, and then in an attempt to solve a problem. Take this poet who now overflows in novels, even in feuilletons, in all the petty tasks of a man of letters—do you really think him unfaithful to his first muse? Yes, doubtless, often. Not always. As long as rhythm sings within him, he is faithful. His downfall does not begin until that day when the harmony of the phrase is utterly sacrificed to reason—to what persons without any beyond in their [Pg 8]spirits call truth. The true poet and the true sage can always, like Goethe, conciliate Poesy and Reality, and all the more easily since Poesy is the daughter of Reality. I remember hearing M. Quinton express surprise that Pasteur should have written a tragedy. Beyond doubt it was very bad (not worse than those in which M. Claretie’s abilities as régisseur excel), but this exercise attests an original sense of rhythm. His beautiful experiments were, in the days that followed, rhythmed like poems, like the marbles of his compatriots Hugo, Rude, Clésinger. The Satyre who scales the mountain of mysteries, the Bacchante au Thyrse, who rushes into voluptuousness, the game of chemical retorts which prove that life arises only from life—these are the gestures of genius animated by one and the same rhythm. One likes to recall that Descartes composed a ballet to pleasure the great Christine; one is fond of remembering that Montesquieu rhythmed the games of his young imagination, that Pascal composed a symphony upon the Passions of love, that Nietzsche caused the forests to resound with the superhuman laughter of Zarathustra, that Flaubert rhythmed like Homeric verses the quotidian words of that Stupidity to whom he played Hercules.

[Pg 9]

It is rhythm that lends beauty to the poor ballerina who seems draped only in her chemise. May it lend a little to those women who, in their rushing adventures, dance too madly perhaps, each in one of the rays of light resolved by the naïve prism of their desire.—⁠R. G.

July 30, 1908.

Que c’est beau, le jaune!

Van Gogh.

It was understood.

The last time he had sent her a long kiss, his eyes closed as in ecstasy, and she had smiled tenderly, drooping her lashes.

They had never spoken to each other.

She lived there. There were houses, along the river bank and half way up the hill, bordering the road that wound up the slope: there was a mill, a tavern, a sabot factory and two or three little farmhouses, with a shed in which slumbered a cart. One could hear whinnying, a waggoner’s heavy oath, the crowing of a cock, the patter of the water under the mill wheels and its murmuring beneath the wooden bridge.

He, too, lived there, but higher up, behind the trees that framed the horizon. At evening, returning from the hunt, he would pause upon the bridge, look at the water, the willows, the grass, the narrow valley, where the sun, before dying, came to rest for a moment.

It was from this point that he had beheld her. She was spreading out upon the fresh lawn some strips of unbleached linen. He thought [Pg 11]she must be the daughter of the weaver who could be heard at work near the tavern, or else some servant. On other days she would be washing clothes beneath the large hazel tree whose branches bent to kiss the stream, and would lay them on the bushes; then, before returning, she would pick some hazel nuts, or flowers, or would throw pebbles into the water. When she felt that she was being observed she would laugh, but she refused to be disturbed in her work or her play.

One day, however, she stood for a long time looking at him, eating hazel nuts that she cracked between her teeth with all the nimbleness of a squirrel.

Then he came daily. She would be there, or else she would arrive slowly, raising her head. They might have spoken to each other, but they said nothing. He threw flowers to her, or twigs, and she paid no attention. He brought her a yellow carnation: she hid it in her corsage and, without a token, disappeared.

It was on the next day that their mute agreement was concluded.

The following evening, after the first glances had been exchanged, he saw her climb in the direction of the woods and plunge into the coppice. He made a detour and caught up [Pg 12]with her just as she was clearing the rails of a fence. Her short skirt pulled up. She showed a white knee. That decided him. This fresh little peasant lass was just the thing. Desire made him tremble a little.

He received her into his arms, pressed her close, kissed her upon the lips, but gently she freed herself and, curving her shoulders, glided in under the branches.

It was a sunken, abandoned path that led to an old cart-road; she ran quickly, avoiding the brambles, grazing the broom, the honeysuckle and the foxglove that made a crazy arabesque in this sombre lair of sand and gravel which the branches of the beeches, the ash-trees and the oaks sheltered with their thick green mantle.

Stopped by a bramble that clutched at her legs, she was caught by him; he knelt down, vanquished the bramble and threw his arm about her knees. But she did not wish to fall yet. She stiffened; she turned her back upon him. He rose to his feet; his hands ascended to the breasts which she was pressing; he kissed the back of her neck; he nibbled at an ear.

Then she turned her head; her eyes were serious; she abandoned all resistance. Leaning [Pg 13]against the arm that encircled her waist, she surrendered her mouth to kisses, her body to caresses.

They fell tenderly.

Seated now side by side they glanced at each other from the corners of their eyes, occupied in similar motions. She was dressing her hair; he was knotting his cravat.

She was smiling.

He was dreaming.

This happy encounter enchanted him. In his career as an equivocal huntsman he had met with few that could match it. “But how difficult it is to rouse women! The transports of this loving lass were pretty feeble. She seemed more ashamed than tender, more resolved than self-abandoned, I can’t just say.”

He, however, had tasted intense happiness, and what sweet peace he now enjoyed! What charm in this young body, in those contours fresh with their first form. “She is as lissome as the trunk of a beech-tree and her flesh yielded with such pride, yet with such simplicity as well! How simple is love!”

He looked at the young girl, hunting words to say to her, but he did not have the habit of speech, and above all of tender speeches.

[Pg 14]

She appeared prettier than ever, now—more natural. This sensation of naturalness he had never before experienced. Perhaps the silence had led him to reflect.

At last he spoke, mentioning the charm of the moment, the coolness of this grotto, his happiness, his repose.

She tapped her skirt awkwardly, twisted a scape of foxglove between her fingers, smiled, but gave no sign of contentment.

“It seems to me that I could love her, almost, if she would only fondle me.”

Wishing to take out his pipe, he put his hand into the wrong pocket and struck his purse.

“Ah!”

Secretly he extracted a gold-piece, took the child’s hand and clamped her fingers over the surprise. She opened them immediately, looked, and blushed; her bosom swelled, she heaved a deep sigh, then crushed into her friend’s arms, all aquiver with nervous sobs of joy.

On her knees before him, she kissed his eyes, his cheeks, his chin, the corners of his lips.

She was happy.

Le charme inattendu d’un bijou rose et noir.

Baudelaire.

The most beautiful flower that Duclos had ever seen was a black dahlia.

It was in the public garden of a little town in Normandy—a garden of tulips, of daisies, of wistaria, hornbeams and orange trees—a garden where the rare plant, sprung up amidst the familiar ones, seemed truly rare, exceptional and beautiful.

How well a bunch of white violets would go in a torrid greenhouse, amidst the singularity of the orchids! How welcome is an orchid, and how strangely it strikes the eye in a spacious provincial garden, where three children are laughing, or an ecclesiastic, who has just finished his breviary, exchanges timorous words with two old ladies in black!

This garden was fresh and attractive, as elegant as a young woman who is perhaps on her way to love, for surely enough one discovers here the four-leaf clover. Its plots and its beds mingled willingly with the hothouse flowers that were out to take the air, and with the rustic blossoms that sleep outside—those that close at night the eyes which they open to the [Pg 16]sun, those that have always a new smile to take the place of the one that has died, and those who surrender completely, all at once, in a single great kiss.

There were also numerous trees, and even ash, willows and red osiers, among the lilacs, the snowballs and the roses of Jericho. There were lawns, basins, fountains, red fishes and white fishes.

There were black flowers.

During all the summer that he spent in this little town, Duclos came every morning for a walk along the avenue of dahlias. He looked like an inspector of flowers. He examined them one by one, welcoming the newcomers and deploring the fate of those which were about to die.

He would pause for a long time before the clump of black dahlias. A black flower is black. It is a strip of black velvet cut in the shape of a flower, and nothing more.

Black dahlias are simple or double, like all dahlias. The double dahlias are fluted balls, stiff, seemingly fashioned of metal or linen that has been well starched and ironed. Simple dahlias are shaped like a sun or a monstrance and seem, from the height of their green stems, to spread a friendly benediction. [Pg 17]They have an eye, and almost always, in the black dahlias, a yellow eye—an insolvent louis d’or placed in the center of the black velvet sun. They inspire fear, for they seem to be alive, and this is contrary to the nature of flowers, which must be only things, pretty things.

However, the black dahlias that so exalted Duclos every morning in the large solitary garden had no eyes: crisp, curly petals intertwined above the mystery of the stamens and pistils.

“This flower is only an idea, it is a desire. It is a flower?”

One day he met with a surprise. A tiny bindweed had slipped its supple stem in between the petals of a large dahlia and had just opened in the heart of the flower. It had dared to set amidst this night of black velvet the caress of a carnal mother-of-pearl.

“... And I,” he said to himself, “... to think that I never understood that line of Baudelaire’s.... No, it’s impossible.... Farewell, innocent flower that offends the peace of my heart.... Whom am I to love now, since you are not a woman and this country is a desert of love?”

He walked off ill content, his eyes lowered, thrusting at the pebbles of the path with his [Pg 18]foot and with the tip of his cane, meditating upon the disharmony between thought and deed that renders pleasant realizations so difficult and so rare.

“Desire comes rarely at the right moment. One yearns only after the impossible—water that flows, the bird that flies off, the woman who goes back into the house and rudely slams her door. Wisdom would consist in never desiring anything save the bit of bread one is raising to his mouth. And even then, who knows whether one’s throat will not contract as the food is swallowed? Better, then, to desire only that which has already been accomplished, to accept chance and live over again those moments which were happy....”

A cry interrupted his reflections.

He looked up and perceived, seated upon a bench before him, a young woman who, with the hem of her skirt turned up somewhat, was feeling her ankle uneasily, above a white shoe. The hem was black.

Duclos was not timid. As he bowed, his hat in hand, explaining the wickedness of the pebbles that one is apt to trip over, he observed the severity of a toilette that enchanted him. Everything was black and white, save, at the neck, the gleam of a pink ribbon, quite similar [Pg 19]in shade to the bindweed that opened, yonder, in the heart of the black dahlia.

Near the woman, a play in brochure form, yellow and somewhat soiled. He connected this with a large poster that he had seen that morning, and still drunk with his flower and his desire, he murmured, looking at her neck, which was so fresh, then at her subdued, golden face and her very sombre eyes: “The unexpected charm of a pink and black jewel.”

“White, black and pink,” he amended, smiling.

A somewhat forced smile replied to him.

The spoke of the drama. And when he took a seat upon the bench no one made a wry face.

“Such stupidity!” exclaimed the lady, rolling up the pamphlet.

Then he recited some verses for her:

She was soon gazing at him through tender eyes.

Long, shrill whistles. The train rumbled by.

“The station is near,” said Duclos. “You go down a small staircase.”

[Pg 20]

“We have the afternoon,” murmured the lady.

“I love you!” said the young man.

“Why not?” replied the lady.

“Who knows?”

“Who knows?”

They arose at the same impulse.

As they passed the large black dahlia, black and pink now, Duclos stopped, and pointing to the flower:

“I love you, because I love this black and pink flower. I love you, because you are both sisters.”

“And to think,” she said, “that this morning I was weeping over the wickedness of men....”

“Not all men are wicked.”

They gazed at each other for a long time, then took each other’s hands.

“Are you my destined one?”

“Perhaps,” she answered.

Then she added, as at the first time:

“Who knows?”

“Quickly,” said Duclos, “this is the hour.”

They hastened down the little staircase to the station. They set out on their journey.

Sometimes Duclos would call his lady friend “My Dahlia.” This would make her laugh, and dream, too.

[Pg 21]

As soon as they had known each other each loved the other with deep passion.

The black dahlia with the pink heart became for Duclos an everlasting comfort. The large velvet flower soothed his brow, his heart and his lips. It made a beautiful mystery against the marble whiteness.

Cet unanime blanc conflit d’une guirlande avec la même.

S. Mallarmé.

Once upon a time there were two children of the same age—a little boy and a little girl. They were exceedingly fond of each other, were never happy unless together, and there was something tender about their games. At hide and seek, when the little girl had been caught, she would drop into the arms of her companion, throw back her head, lower her lashes, purse her lips; and if the kisses did not rain down, she would demand them, or go to seek them by graciously raising her lips to the other pair of distrait or timid lips. They had just passed their tenth year.

One very warm day they rolled down their stockings to go wading in the brook. They got very wet and lay down to dry upon the warm grass, in the sun. The sight of their little pink legs, however, and of their dripping knees excited their curiosity. They made comparisons, and the little boy was wise enough to adjudge his skin the less smooth. “It is also less soft,” he said; and his hands went in company of his eyes.

[Pg 23]

They began anew the next day, and each day they read more. Their kisses, now, were companioned by sweet caresses that sent the blood swirling to their heads. But the very next instant they had already forgotten this and their innocence burst into laughter. They were happy.

With the coming of the first cold weather and the rain, they transferred their games to a large, half empty room that was left to them. The little boy, who went to school, would spend all his spare time at his friend’s. The little girl received her instruction at home. Upon certain days when the weather was bad the little boy would take his lessons with her. Their parents, with an eye to the future, observed this childish tenderness of the two pupils with great pleasure.

Towards the month of December a curate came to the house and was led by the mother to the large room in which the children were playing. An armchair and a footstool were brought for him. He sat down, took out his snuff-box, wiped his lips, sniffed a generous pinch and spoke of the good Lord. This subject was already known to him, but the little girl grew attentive when the priest, turning toward her, addressed her thus:

[Pg 24]

“My child, you will soon, I hope, make the acquaintance of your Creator. You know how much he loves you, and you love him, too. Pure hearts always love the good Lord. But real love demands closer intimacy and more abandon. Jesus will come to you and you will surrender to him confidently. You will feel the sacred embraces of your Creator. In a word, my dear little girl, we are going to prepare you for your first communion.”

“And what about me?” asked the little boy.

“Listen,” said the priest, “and profit duly by my words. You know,” he continued, turning back to the little girl, “the great importance of such an act. The catechism has instructed you in the grandeur of the sacrament. What a mystery is the union of the Creator and the created! This union is effected by the eucharistic communion and it brings to those beings who know how to prepare for it and make themselves worthy of it all the ineffable joys of divine love....”

He spoke for a long time, and the coldness of his speech contrasted with the exaltation of the sentiments that he expressed. At every moment he would unfold a large red, very dirty handkerchief, open his snuff-box, take a pinch, hawk and sneeze. The little girl understood [Pg 25]nothing of the great words of love uttered by this old automaton; still, he spoke of love and this word, even in such a mouth, charmed her and made her shudder a little.

Her confessor had not yet questioned her upon the sixth commandment, but, upon the approach of the great day, he abandoned his reserve or his indifference. His very precise questions, which for the rest conformed to the manuals of devotion, interested the little girl deeply. Upon reflection she became heartbroken. So all those nice things were sins. Those games, those kisses, those touches, those caresses—sins! The priest taught her, then, only this—that without realizing it she had ceased to be innocent.

One afternoon she refused her friend’s kiss and, with no further explanation, went to a corner of the room and sank to her knees. Then she took a book and read: “Let us faithfully remove all obstacles that might impede the arrival of Jesus into us. Let us prepare for Him a pure sanctuary, adorned and aglow with love; and when He shall have come, we will be able to say to Him, in the fervor of our joy: ‘My well-beloved is mine, he has reposed upon my heart.’....”

She had uttered these words aloud. The little [Pg 26]boy heard them and asked, through tears:

“It’s no longer I whom you love?”

“You can’t understand those things. I love you as my brother and as my little friend; I have a deep affection for you, but my love belongs to Jesus.”

“To Jesus!”

He shrugged his shoulders in peevish chagrin.

“Jesus loves me. How then can I not love Him? He courts me; how then resist Him? Don’t you know that He is all-powerful and that He can pulverize the both of us on the spot?”

“Really?”

Overwhelmed, he meditated upon this Stranger, so strong and so cruel, who had come to bear off his friend and to break his heart.

“Ah! Let Him kill me, but let him not take you away!”

“He won’t take me away. Did He take away Angéle, Laure, Juliette, whom He loved so much a year ago and who are all still so happy with Him?”

“Then He won’t love you always?”

“He will love me always, but from afar, and I, too, shall love Him. But I’m not the only one on earth and He must enter the hearts of [Pg 27]all little girls who take their first communion.”

“Does He enter the hearts of little boys, too?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied in ironic tones. “He can offer to little boys only a good, firm friendship.”

“As for me, I’ll never love Him.”

“You’ll be compelled to love Him, when you’ll have a pure heart, you’ll see.”

“Ah!”

“Now, I have a pure heart, I’ve confessed all my sins!”

“What sins!”

“Silence, and ask pardon of God.”

She renewed her prayers.

Her friend meditated.

Little boys, less early developed, generally take their first communion a year later than little girls of their age. This was a custom; he did not feel humiliated by it. Nevertheless, he would have liked very much to share in the mysteries into which his friend was about to be initiated. He felt a mingled jealousy and fear.

“I only hope,” he told himself, “that He does her no harm!”

At last the great day arrived. He saw his little friend pale and winsome in a cloud of muslin. These two whitenesses were charming. [Pg 28]Drawing near to her, he murmured:

“How I love you!”

She lowered her eyes and rolled in her white-gloved fingers the beads of her mother-of-pearl chaplet. She walked on without answer, without so much as looking at him. He was sad throughout the ceremony. The recital of acts stirred him a trifle, but at the sound of his friend’s voice his heart broke:

“Oh, my sole possession, my treasure, my life, my paradise, my love, my All, I wish to receive You with a heart aflame with love.... Oh, my treasure, I wish to live and die in a continual union with You!... My well-beloved has given Himself all to me I give myself likewise all to Him. Oh, my Jesus, I desire no longer to belong to myself. I would be yours alone. Let my senses belong to You and may they no longer serve for aught but to give You pleasure....”

“Ungrateful wretch!” he thought. He stirred with anger. Then he recalled the charming hours spent with his friend—their games, their laughter, those long kisses that put them out of breath, those embraces out of which they came blushing, with scorching skin and moist eyes....

“And now all these pleasures she is to give to [Pg 29]another! And I’m left all alone.... She loves me no more....”

The little girl had the honor of speaking again after the communion. She returned to her place, the first one in the white procession, kneeled with her head in her hands and remained for a long time absorbed. A powerful emotion crushed her. She felt at once grieved and happy:

“He is within me, I feel Him in my heart.... My heart swells.... I stifle, but it is with happiness.... I am beloved, I am beloved.... Is it Thou, my love? Oh! Stay in my arms, clasp me tightly yet again! Ah! I feel bad.... My head is in a whirl.... Ah! Ah! What a feeling! Now I will declare my love for Him unafraid. I am well content, deeply proud.... Thou lovest me, say? He loves me.”

She arose and spoke:

“Oh loving Savior, I have given myself to You and You have given Yourself to me. I wish to sacrifice to You all the pleasures of the earth; I sacrifice to you my body, my soul, my will. I have only these to offer You, alas! If I had more, I would give You more. I would gladly die for you.... Kindle me with Your love! But I am not satisfied with a spark, I want a flame, I want a thousand flames, I [Pg 30]want a conflagration that shall on the instant destroy within me all attachment to earthly creatures.... Vain creatures, leave me; you will never again behold me. Ask no more for my affection. My heart belongs entirely to my well-beloved....”

“She loves me no more,” he said to himself. “She will never love me again.”

He wept. The persons near him believed that it was through pious emotion.

At last mass was over and the seats were heard to move about on the lower floor of the church. The little girl who had been reborn through love felt likewise devoured by hunger. Then she began to think of her house, her parents, her friend, the beautiful table set for the celebration, aglitter with flowers, with crystal and silver; she thought of the kitchen, of the cook. Surely a good plate of soup was getting cold for her.

“After that, I’ll eat a nice tart.... My friend will be there, eager to serve me attentively.... I love him so.... While waiting for vespers we’ll take a stroll, we’ll pick flowers, only white flowers, as white as my veil, as my heart. I’m so happy!”

The little boy had run to his friend’s house, where his family was dining that day. He had [Pg 31]gone to notify the cook, and, in the pantry, on a corner of the table, there had been laid aside specially two plates of soup, two royal patties and two glasses of wine.

When the little girl arrived he took her by the hand and she let him pull her along. At the sight of the dainty banquet her little feminine heart melted with tenderness. She threw herself around the little boy’s neck and hugging him with all her might, said:

“You know, Jesus is my mystic husband, but that isn’t going to last long. While he loves me, tell me what you want, for He’ll refuse his little wife nothing.”

“I want you to love me as before.”

“Here,” she said.

She gave him her lips.

“Are you satisfied? Let’s eat, now. I’m as hungry as a bear.”

She was a princess. A sister of the queen; she lived at her side and shared her honors. But the fancy of the princess, suggested less pompous pleasures to her, and she gladly would visit one of her ladies in waiting whose husband was a simple member of the bodyguard and moreover an excellent gentleman—young, handsome, witty, tender.

The princess had been married in her country to a prince who might become king, if several generations were to disappear in some cataclysm. They had never loved each other. The princess, too, who was at times mocking and always proud, was reputed to have a heart of iron. She had been showered with plenty of homage, but had accepted no one. Now she would scoff, now she would assume a glacial tone. She was fond only of her toilette, gaming and domination. What pleased her about the guard was that he accepted her smiles as commands; then, she always won at vingt-et-un; and her gowns and her diamonds eclipsed all other adornments and all other gowns. The guard had never displayed for her any feeling other than a deep respect.

As she was blonde, she liked blue stuffs, blue flowers, sapphires, as blue as her eyes, so that [Pg 33]people began to call her the Blue Princess. The name, which seemed to have come out of a fairy tale, pleasured her. One day, hearing the sad confidences of her lady in waiting, she felt a certain languor steal through her thoughts and into her limbs, and she said: “My soul is a blue bird.” This phrase, which she repeated several times, restored all her serenity, so beautiful it was. Then she looked about her:

“So your husband is away, my dear? I believe he hasn’t come to pay his respects to me.”

“My husband seems absent to you today, but isn’t he absent every day?”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t he every day absent from himself?”

“My poor friend, that signifies that he neglects you.”

“He no longer loves me.”

“Truly, this is fine behavior. But it’s impossible. Besides, I’ll not allow it. I don’t want my friend to be unhappy. He is going to get orders from me.”

“Ah, madame! You believe, then, that hearts may be commanded?”

“Why, without a doubt. Was I consulted when they married me off—me, a princess? I was told to love my husband, and I loved him.”

[Pg 34]

“How long?”

“Why, I should have loved him always, had he wished it. He did not wish it.”

“So you see.”

“He did not wish it, or perhaps he could not. The marriage gave me no pleasure; he reproached me for my coldness, and I wept. Since that moment we have never met without witnesses. At first I felt exceedingly humiliated, then I appreciated the quietude of solitary nights. I am very happy to be a girl again. But since my experience I understand somewhat the less all games, dramas and comedies of love.... Then you find amusement, do you, in the conjugal ceremony?”

The lady gazed at her mistress with respectful, sorrowful irony.

Then she said:

“I fear lest my husband has some lady-love upon his mind, or some light-o’-love.”

“Light-o’-love?” repeated the princess. “The word’s a pretty one. Light-o’-love. That can hardly be serious, can it?”

“Serious? No. Light-o’-love passes and love remains. But I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a genuine love passion that takes him from me. I’m afraid, really.”

[Pg 35]

“I understand almost nothing of all this,” said the princess, “but I should be glad to see you as happy as I myself am. As far as that is concerned, I need only the life that goes by and that I breathe. As for you, since you need love, I’ll do my best, I repeat, to help you. The word of his princess will touch his heart.... Eh! My good friend, perhaps it is I whom he adores?”

“Perhaps, alas!”

“Why ‘alas’? If it is I, you are saved.”

At this moment the guard entered and advanced to salute the princess.

“Monsieur,” she said to him, “I will receive you at six o’clock at the palace, in private audience.”

She arose and left.

Everybody followed the example of the princess, and man and wife were left face to face, both exceedingly uneasy.

“Madame,” said the husband, “so you have displeased the princess? So it’s to you that I owe this insult?”

“Insult? What do you mean? The lady of your thoughts makes a private appointment for you and yet you complain?”

He was at a loss for reply, for this was the first time that his wife had referred to feelings [Pg 36]which he had imagined he held well hidden in his heart.

“The lady of my thoughts,” he answered, brutally, “is my career, and you have doubtless ruined that with your prating.”

“I’m no gossip.”

“You’re stupid.”

“Ah! Leave me. You don’t deserve to be loved.”

The lady in waiting fled, brimming with a sad anger. But, in defiance of all reason, she hoped that the intercession of the princess would prove fruitful, and she spent the rest of that day weeping softly.

The guard adored the princess secretly and without hope. Timid and violent, he saved his timidity for his divinity, his violence for his wife; but when he had been brutal he would be overwhelmed with shame and his timidity would cause him much suffering. He was almost always unhappy. Thus, for some time he had been seeking in ambition a remedy for his ills. He had just spent the afternoon in executing the most humiliating errands for the king’s mistress, who was troubled by the attentions of a lover of inferior station whom she had dismissed. The guard, in exchange for a note three lines long, was to receive a captain’s [Pg 37]brevet. He had the note in his wallet and it was supposed to be delivered to the mistress at exactly six o’clock.

Love, curiosity and disquietude triumphed over ambition. He went to dress for the occasion, perfumed himself and ran to the interview, saying to himself: “Perhaps it’s a rendez-vouz.”

The princess, instead of letting him dance attendance, was herself waiting for him when he arrived, and not without impatience. She was prettier than ever, because more pale, with sparkling eyes. Her face was as tender as a cluster of white lilacs hidden beneath the leaves, but these leaves were blonde: her coiffure, in most artistic disarray, let a few curly tresses droop to her shoulders.

“Come nearer,” she said in a sorrowing voice. “Come nearer. Stand here, beside me. I am suffering, and can speak only in the lowest tones. And then, it’s the friend, the friend of your wife who receives you—not the princess. Now, then: I have become aware that you no longer love Elizabeth and that gives me pain. Have you really ceased to love her?”

“Alas!”

“And how about your sense of duty, of your honor?”

[Pg 38]

“My honor?”

“Yes. You had vowed to her, besides conjugal fidelity, an eternal tenderness....”

“She believed it.... Perhaps I, too, believed.”

“It’s wrong to abandon her, to torment her.... She is weeping at this moment, I am sure....”

“I am not bad to her.”

“Very well. Promise me never to cause her displeasure again.”

“I will never voluntarily cause her displeasure.”

“Good. But promise me more. Promise me....”

She seemed oppressed, and her voice sank so low that, in order to hear it, the guard had to lean toward the princess, almost grazing her tresses. This man, although he was accustomed to all the dissemblances of the courtly folk, suffered frightfully. To love the princess from afar had seemed to him a sweet torture in comparison to the agony which, at this moment, was stirred in him by desire. Were she any other woman, either he would have fallen to his knees or taken to flight; with the princess, he must remain, keep silent and preserve the attitude of a soldier receiving orders.

[Pg 39]

“Promise me,” resumed the princess, “that you will be kind to her, very kind, and that you will love her again....”

The guard said nothing.

“You promise?”

Still he said nothing.

“Then it’s no longer possible? All is then over between you? Have you any serious fault to find with her?”

“I have no fault to find. I no longer love her. That is all.”

“Let her not discover this, at least!”

“I was hoping that she would never discover it.”

“One may cease loving a woman, then, without her discovering?”

“It is hard. I lacked the necessary skill. What is too easy, alas, is to love a woman without her discovering it.”

“Oh! You really think so?”

“I am sure of it. She whom I love has never suspected my love and will never suspect it.”

“Sir guard,” said the princess, “sir soldier man, you are a child. She whom you love knows your love....”

“Alas!” he said, incredulously.

“... and she loves you,” she added, giving him her two hands.

[Pg 40]

He threw himself upon the gift, but he was still undecided, so troubled that he panted.

“Kiss them, my child,” said the princess. “Kiss me, you who love me, you who have desired me so long in the secret chamber of your heart. Kiss your blue princess, kiss your love.”

On the next morning the maid said to her mistress:

“Oh! Madame has a blue spot upon her throat.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. It’s a mark. But so strange! Now it’s here, now there. It appears, it vanishes. On my throat, it’s true, and on my heart....”

“Perhaps that’s why they call Madame the blue princess?” continued the innocent woman.

“Go, see if my lady-in-waiting is there.”

The princess, left for a moment by herself, gazed feelingly at her blue spot.

“Lord, how happy I am!” she said to herself. “And how cunning! And how stupid is my friend! To confide her love troubles! Poor Ariane, without you, I should perhaps never have known anything. Those glances which I took for the signs of an ardent, respectful attachment were love!... But here she comes....”

The lady-in-waiting entered excitedly.

[Pg 41]

“Ah! Princess? I had to stay up for him till four in the morning! I am beside myself! All is lost.”

“There! Can’t you ever be reasonable? On the contrary, all is settled.”

“Ah! Thanks!”

“Listen to me. I received his confession. It was difficult, it was long. At last I know the truth. It’s a light-o’-love. The person who has turned your husband’s head is a humble actress of no consequence. Men take them, drop them, pick them up again. This one had already passed through many hands, and among others, through my husband’s.... You see, you and I have a family relationship.... Now then. An actress is hardly ever free during the day time. Her liberty begins when that of other women ends, at midnight. So I have decided that your husband’s duties shall be shifted to my palace from midnight to four in the morning.... Naturally he will receive compensation, for that’s an arduous task.... His future is assured, and his happiness.... Is he ambitious? Yes. Very well. Would he like a title? A decoration? At first I’ll attach him to my personal suite. As soon as there is an opening, in six months, in three, he will be made my aide-de-camp, my secretary. He will leave me only to court you, happy wife. Between [Pg 42]the two of us we will keep watch over him....”

“How good you are!”

“Am I not, indeed?”

“You are kindness itself.”

“You are beautiful. You are, and that is worth more.”

“Beautiful? Who is more beautiful than you?”

“Flatterer! I am thirty and you are twenty-five.... Alas! I have renounced everything. You will love me, at least?”

“I have always loved you. Henceforth I will adore you. My life belongs to you. I will devote myself to you until death, and my husband, too, I fondly hope.”

“I, too, hope so. I have perhaps delivered him from a grave peril, from an unhappy love, for what joy can one find in the adventure that he was engaged in?”

“When he comes to his right senses he will be deeply grateful to you.... Yesterday evening, that is to say this morning, he was greatly troubled. When he returned, I thought him drunk. He stared at me out of wandering eyes. As soon as he entered his room he bolted the door and I heard him cry out: ‘Ah! Ah! Ah!’...”

[Pg 43]

“He said nothing else?”

“I don’t think so. He is not very talkative.”

“A precious virtue. What would you say of a husband who imparted humiliating confidences?... There are some like that.... Mine, for example....”

“You were indeed unhappy!”

“Yes and no. I never think of it any more The present exalts my heart.... To bring happiness to those you love and who love you,—can anything in the world equal that?”

“You are adorable!”

“And I am adored.”

“Oh! Yes.”

“My dear friend!”

She did not withhold her hand, which the lady in waiting covered with kisses.

“They are superimposed,” she thought, “but the last does not efface the first. Your lips, poor couple, still meet in fervor, but upon my skin.... It is indeed curious....”

“Ah!” she resumed, aloud, “now that you are sure to rediscover your happiness one day or another, I hope that you will be prudent. According to the tales confided to me, your husband has been a trifle fatigued by conjugal joys. Men don’t like to have advances made to them....”

[Pg 44]

“Oh! Between husband and wife! Never mind. I will be discreet, generous friend....”

“More generous than you think! For, after all, your husband is very seductive. He is young, younger than I,—handsome, ardent, passionate....”

“He was.”

“He still is, you may be sure, and you will notice it soon enough. If I had not renounced everything, if I were not a princess.... In your place I should be jealous.”

“Ah! Lord, I know your heart too well.”

“Then you will go home in full confidence? Yet a mite sad.”

“Yet a mite.”

“But the clouds are scattering, the sky is beginning to turn blue again?”

“Yes.”

“As blue as my soul, my tender darling, as blue as my heart.”

And she thrust her finger into her bosom, toward the spot of the blue bruise that so enchanted her amorous flesh.

L’heure violette.

Leo Larguier.

They called her the old maid, and yet, though she was both a maid and old, she looked like neither one nor the other. Her appearance suggested a widow just past her prime. She always dressed in black, with a profusion of embroidery, ornaments and violet ribbons. Most frequently a bouquet of pale violets would bedeck her corsage and would be repeated, artificially, upon her hat. The scent of violets floated through her garden, her house and her heart: her soft eyes were two beautiful violets. The old maid was jolly and religious; and the curates were not slow in adducing this as a proof that good humor is the inseparable companion of virtue and piety: “Just see the old maid. Heaven is in her soul and in her eyes.” Her eyes were indeed of the sweetest, and a smile, at once celestial and childish, would scatter its benediction over the pink plenitude of her countenance. She was, in every aspect, plump, but not to excess, and the entire effect revealed that restful suavity of definite architectural structures.

A single token betrayed her age—the color of her hair. Their very ashen blond had become [Pg 46]even more faded when she reached forty, dissolving into the shade of tawny linen which the years, those skilful laundresses, bleach at each springtime a little.

In short, the old maid was an agreeable canoness.

Toward that period in which she had to undergo the great feminine crisis, her fortune, through the establishment of a railroad that cut across one of her farms, rose considerably. Then, her head being troubled by vapors, she felt a desire to move. She made distant pilgrimages, but only in the company of a lady friend, and at her leisure. Having seen the provinces and some new faces, she felt different; her curiosity, too long dormant, awoke. A literary ecclesiastic loaned her some books of history. The novel treats only of possible loves, while history speaks of real loves attested by letters and relics. The old maid was surprised; one day she dreamed for a long time before the picture of a handsome worldly cardinal which decorated a serious book.

Galeotto fu ’l libro e chi lo scrisse.⁠[A]⁠

She had not married, through piety, having, [Pg 47]at the hands of a priest implacable before all terrestrial pleasures, taken a vow to consecrate herself to the Lord. Her mother, informed of this, wept and threatened to die; then the daughter deferred, postponing this abandonment of the world until her mother should have departed. But the years, without abating her piety, had little by little effaced in her spirit even the memory of this vow, and when she had found herself free to fulfill it, she had no longer thought of it. The fanatical priest was dead. The hour of marriage was dead, too. Having refused all the eligibles of the region, she had become, without noticing it, the old maid; and now that she did realize it, it was too late. Besides, she was happy thus, and happier still since she had taken to dreaming.

So the old maid was dreaming, one beautiful twilight toward the end of September, as she shelled peas in her garden together with her servant. One could descry the little town, reclining like a lazy lass along the river bank; one of her arms, half bare, rose toward the station; the other was lost in a forest; her head was formed by the church; her body, the city; and her legs, the suburbs. And all this dozed, even the station, between two cries.

[Pg 48]

The old maid was dreaming so well that her servant, wearied of not obtaining any replies to her talk, had ceased speaking; she was dreaming so well that, at the sound of the front-door bell, she started and half rose with a bewildered air.

The visitor did not correspond to her dream. She recognized one of her girlhood companions, a poor woman who lived in the country, married to a petty notary and burdened with children. An urchin of some twelve years, garbed in a sorry gray uniform, followed this figure, with humble mien and his cap in his hands.

The reception was a cold one, but the poor woman was so amiable and she brought such pretty rustic flowers and such large plums, that the old maid rediscovered her smile. The youngster was introduced to her; he was going, on the following day, to enter the town academy as a pensioner. Now, the parents, who were too busy and not wealthy, could come all that distance to see him only three or four times per year, perhaps. What was desired of her was, that if it did not inconvenience her too greatly, she should board during holidays this youngster, who was so well-behaved, so gentle, so respectful, and so well advanced in his [Pg 49]studies, since he had just won a scholarship.

The old maid consented. This seemed to her at first an act of charity.

“If I can’t attend to it,” she said, “Rosalie will hunt him up and see after him. She’ll take him to my Pine farm in good weather. He’ll drink milk. Is he fond of milk?”

“Oh!” replied the mother, “very much. Thank the mademoiselle.”

“Thank you, mademoiselle.”

At the sound of this sweet voice, already almost masculine, the old maid looked at the youngster.

That was all. As night had fallen the peas were brought in, and the old maid, summoned by the Angelus, went off to church.

Rosalie, toward the middle of October, went to the academy. The boy was given to her.

Mademoiselle would not return till evening. Alone with a servant, the boy soon began to take liberties. Then, tired, he became serious and spoke of his studies, of his plans for the future. When Mademoiselle arrived unexpectedly, she found a young man who was saying, solemnly:

“As soon as I shall have become a sub-lieutenant, I will marry; I already am considering it.”

[Pg 50]

“And perhaps you know whom?”

“I know very well.”

The servant laughed. She, too, knew whom he would marry as soon as it would be possible.

“Why, he’s charming—this little fellow!” exclaimed the old maid.

After this first day, she never failed to be at home during the school holidays. They would chat, take strolls, or play by the fire. She used the familiar form of address when speaking to him, she would kiss him, touch his clothes, mother him; she loved him.

In the meantime the youngster became thirteen, then came vacation days; she let them pass, and herself went on a trip. But the end of September was like an anniversary; she wished herself to go and fetch him whom she called her protégé. While waiting for school to reopen, he spent three days in her home. She was so attentive, so tender, almost, that Rosalie felt pangs of jealousy.

The holidays came around again, all alike, all happy. There were hours of intimacy, family hours, but mingled with a certain indescribable uneasiness, ever so sweet, of an acute, enervating sweetness. The days went by and the boy grew to fourteen.

[Pg 51]

The absence of Rosalie on one afternoon that she went to the farm troubled them as an animal is troubled by the sudden opening of his cage. By a common impulse they went into the house. It was stormy and very warm.

“Come,” she said, “to my room. It’s the only cool place in the house.”

And all this was innocent and inevitable.

In her room they drew near to a table where there were albums; they looked them over together, but without seeing anything. Their voices, when they spoke, seemed to them different. Their knees touched, then their hands, then their lips, and the rest came, too, though with difficulty.

The thrill of the chaste old maid was moving. She wept. Then she sank to her knees and worshipped, as a sacred symbol, the adorable body of her little friend. The god that she had sought distractedly on her pious journeys had at last appeared, and the happiness that the priests had prophesied for her she had at last felt swelling her heart.

The young boy was far less perturbed, for at that age pleasure does not radiate. He was absorbed by anatomical curiosity. He made a tour of the woman he had conquered, like the adolescent who feels his first partridge all [Pg 52]about and who brushes back all its feathers.

“My little Jesus,” said the old maid, “Rosalie will soon be here.”

The hours that intervened before dinner were like acts of grace. She dined as one listening to mass.

And this continued for four years, from Thursday to Thursday, from vacation to vacation. The young boy, at times, felt a desire for other loves, but tiny hamlets are not very fertile in adventures and, then again, such powerful arms enfolded him, such generous hands!

Rosalie, who detected the secret of her mistress, took advantage of it to procure herself a dowry in view of the uncertainty of the future, and the adopted son of the “old maid” became a young man who enjoyed high esteem.

And now the old maid discovered that, among her friend’s children there were two other little boys, one of twelve and one of eight.

“I’ll see them through their school career,” she said. “But I want only one at a time.”

And thus it was arranged. These three little friends took care of her to her sixtieth year. Rich in the years of youth that she had economised, and unceasingly refreshed by [Pg 53]youthful flesh, this innocent Ninon continued, up to an advanced age, to be the benefactress of the honorable poor families who had sons to send to school. Her piety, now become uncertain, gave concern to the clergy, but since one of her pupils, disgusted with his love tasks, entered the ecclesiastical seminary, where the old maid paid his expenses generously, the church was reassured. There are crises of indifference even in the souls of the most religious.

Only the confessor of the old maid, for she confessed regularly and voluptuously—only this honest old canon knew the whole truth. He would lower his eyes as they met those of his penitent and would flee at her approach. The odor of the secret that sealed his lips poisoned his heart. He died of grief at the sight of his tender lioness devouring her seventh lamb.

Violets continued ever to adorn and to perfume the corsage and the hat, the garden and the heart of the old maid with the violet eyes.

Cum vere rubenti Candida venit avis.

Virgil.

She was already returning, her arms rigid with the weight of the milk pails; her sabots were wet with the dew, and the hem of her skirt felt cold. When the sun became visible, red through the morning mist, she said to herself:

“It’s going to be a beautiful day.”

She mused upon this for a long while, avoiding the pebbles of the path so as not to spill her milk, and the tall bending, weeping grass because her bare legs were really cold.

“It’s going to be a beautiful day.”

She walked on, now crossing a field of gorse where the path, much wider, made expressly for the farmhands, stretched straight ahead of her. The mist had disappeared, enchanted by the sun—had risen yonder above, doubtless, whence it would descend again gently, as serene dew, a mantle of coolness which the stars spread fraternally over the shoulders of the parched earth.

She mused again:

“It’s going to be very warm.”

Then a stem of buckwheat, lost there by a bird, suggested to her:

[Pg 55]

“The buckwheat will be ripe for threshing.”

This idea gave her pleasure, then became a source of worriment, for the season had been a wet one, and if the buckwheat were ripe for threshing, surely it would be threshed. This meant that she must quickly get in, quickly strain the milk, feed the fowl and many things, so many that she felt a tug at her heart.

As she was striding along too quickly, a drop of milk splashed from the pail and fell upon her sabot. She stopped, put down the pails, happy for a chance to rest, although she was somewhat remorseful, too; in order to limber them she raised her beautiful pink arms very high, thus gilding them with the fire of the sun.

Suddenly she started, becoming almost pale, and bringing her hand to her bosom. She had not been frightened. She had simply been surprised by the first gun shot of the year.

At the same moment she saw a cloudlet of smoke; a feather flew by her; a wounded partridge fell amidst the gorse.

“Here, Tom!” cried a voice. “Go look. Fetch it.”

The dog bounded along the path, pressed forward, returned, intent and troubled, but definitely resolved not to plunge into the dangerous [Pg 56]forest. As the voice, now more imperious, more angry and nearer as well, repeated the commandment, Tom, his tail between his legs, took refuge in the skirts of the young girl, who bent over to caress him and encourage him.

“Don’t fondle him, beat him!” cried the voice.

It was that of a young man who now appeared, standing in the hedge amidst the branches.

The milk maid straightened up, looked and turned red. From the voice she had not been able to tell whether it was the father or the son. She thought that it was the father; she wished it were, for the scorn of the haughty young man, who had never spoken a word to her, pained her deeply.

She went red and felt uneasy, but could not lower her glance. She was lost in admiration, she was ready to fall to her knees.

The command was repeated, the dog pretended death.

Then, with legs and arm bare, she plunged into the gorse and was badly scratched. She walked along almost blindly, as fast as she could, holding back her tears.

[Pg 57]

Having fetched the partridge she threw it into Tom’s mouth.

The young man, still standing amidst the trees, above the sea of cruel gorse, made her a friendly sign then jumped forward, proceeding in front of his hound.

She, without replying, perhaps without having seen the friendly gesture that thanked the poor servant, once more bent her shoulders beneath the neck yoke, and the milk pails, well balanced, hung from her red hands.

She walked on, thinking no longer of anything but matters so vague and so deep that her mind could not grasp them.

Her legs were bleeding, her hand was bleeding, and around her right arm was a scratch that encircled it like a bracelet.

“That’s a briar.”

The gorse pricks but does not tear.

The milk pails, in the meantime, seemed to grow lighter. She walked on, quickly, as quickly as her unstable burden would permit.

A man whom she passed near the farmhouse looked at her bleeding arm. Then she turned red. Later, as she strained the milk, she thought that she felt ill.

The purple bracelet gripped her arm, but it was in her heart that she felt the clutch.

[Pg 58]

Tom was running up to her. She was afraid.

“Is it going to begin all over again?” she asked herself, upset by emotion.

Panting but happy, the dog lay at her feet. Then, espying a bowl, she poured out a little milk for him.

“You spoil him,” said the young man, approaching. “I told you, he rather deserved a beating.”

She found some words to say:

“Beat your dog?”

“Upon my word, if I had been alone, the partridge should have remained in the gorse. Did you hurt yourself? Oh! You’re bleeding?”

She was so happy that she no longer felt her joy. She was in another world. She was a woman face to face with a man.

“Let me see!”

She held out her pink, golden arm and at once drew it back, thus causing her breasts to shake under the coarse plaited linen. The young man was tempted, but controlled himself:

“Don’t say anything. But I don’t want anybody to know that I met you near the gorse.”

He went off, knowing full well what he was to do.

[Pg 59]

The next morning as the dew was disappearing and Tom was off in search of yesterday’s partridges, a sudden cry, a sweet and dolorous cry, rose from amidst the tall dry grass, near the gorse field, yonder where the heather begins.

The servant returned as on the previous day, her shoulders beneath the yoke, her hands hanging, holding the milk pails. She did not stop on the way, although she was very weary and deeply moved. She strained her milk, as on every other day, sunk in vague thought. But, her task finished, she sat down upon a stool and gazed at her arm.

A mad bite had placed upon the bracelet of blood a red clasp.