v

i seemed to have no other reason for living than my love, and to that i clung, expecting nothing, and

with my mind made up to expect nothing, but what should come to me from alissa.

the next morning, as i was getting ready to go and see her, my aunt handed me the following

letter which she had just received:

‘...juliette’s extreme restlessness did not yield to the doctor’s prescriptions till towards morning. i beg jérôme

not to come and see us for some days. juliette might recognize his footsteps or his voice, and she is in need of the

greatest quiet.

‘i am afraid juliette’s condition will keep me here. if i do not manage to see jérôme before he leaves, please tell

him, dear aunt, that i will write to him...’

the bucolins’ door was shut only against me. my aunt, or anyone else that chose, was free to

knock at it; and, indeed, my aunt was going there that very morning. i might make a noise! what a

feeble excuse! no matter.

‘very well,’ said i, ‘i won’t go.’

it cost me a great deal not to see alissa again at once, and yet i was afraid of seeing her, i was

afraid she might hold me responsible for her sister’s condition, and it was easier to bear not seeing

her again than seeing her vexed.

at any rate, i determined i would see abel.

at his door, the maid gave me a note:

‘i am leaving you this word or two so that you mayn’t be anxious. the idea of staying at le havre, so near

juliette, was intolerable. i embarked for southampton last night, almost directly after i left you. i shall spend the

rest of the holidays with s— in london. we shall meet again at the school.’

all human help failed me at one and the same time. i did not prolong a stay which could only

prove painful to me, and went back to paris before the beginning of the term. it was to god that i

turned my looks, to him ‘from whom cometh down all true consolation and every good gift.’ it was

to him that i offered my trouble. i thought that alissa, too, was taking refuge in him, and the thought

that she was praying encouraged and exalted my prayers.

there went by a long period of meditation and study with no other events but alissa’s letter to me

and mine to her. i have kept all her letters; by their help i can, from this time onwards, check my

recollections when they become confused.

i had news of le havre from my aunt, and at first only from her; i learnt through her what anxiety

juliette’s unhappy condition had caused for the first few days. twelve days after i had left i at last

received this letter from alissa:

‘forgive me, my dear jérôme, for not having written to you sooner. our poor juliette’s state has allowed me

very little time. since you went away, i have hardly left her. i begged aunt to give you news of us, and i suppose

she has done so. so you know that juliette had been better for the last three days. i already thank god, but i dare not

feel happy yet.’

robert also, of whom i have so far told you very little, was able to give me news of his sisters,

when he returned to paris a few days after me. for their sake, i spent more time with him than my

disposition would have naturally inclined me to; whenever the school of agriculture, where he was

studying, left him free, i took him in charge and was at great pains to amuse him.

it was through him that i learnt – what i had not dared ask either alissa or my aunt – that édouard

teissières had come to inquire for juliette very assiduously, but when robert had left le havre she

had not yet seen him. i learnt also that juliette had kept up an obstinate silence towards her sister,

which nothing had been able to break down.

then i learnt from my aunt a little later that juliette insisted on her engagement being made

public, in spite of what i instinctively felt was alissa’s hope that it would be broken off at once.

advice, injunctions, entreaties, spent themselves in vain against this determination of juliette’s,

which seemed fixed like a bar across her brow and like a bandage over her eyes – which seemed to

immure her in silence.

time passed. i received from alissa – to whom, indeed, i knew not what to write – nothing but

the most elusive notes. the thick fogs of winter wrapped me round; my study lamp and all the

fervour of my love and faith served but ill, alas! to keep the darkness and the cold from my heart.

time passed. then, one morning of sudden spring, came a letter from alissa to my aunt, who was

absent from le havre, a letter which my aunt sent on to me and from which i copy out the part that

throws light on my story.

‘admire my docility. as you advised, i have seen m. teissières and talked to him at length. i confess that his

behaviour has been perfect, and i have almost, i admit, come to the point of believing that the marriage may not

turn out so badly as i feared at first. certainly juliette does not love him; but he seems to me every week to be less

unworthy of her love. he speaks of the situation with great clear-sightedness and makes no mistake as to my sister’s

character; but he has great faith in the efficacy of his own love, and flatters himself that there is nothing his

constancy will not be able to overcome. that is to say, he is very much in love.

‘yes! i am extremely touched to see jérôme take so much trouble over my brother. i imagine that he does so

only out of a sense of duty, for robert’s character is very different from his – perhaps, too, in order to please me –

but doubtless he has already come to understand that the more arduous the duty one assumes, the more it educates

and uplifts the soul. you will think these very lofty reflections, but do not laugh at your foolish niece too much, for

it is these thoughts which give me support and which help me to try and look upon juliette’s marriage as a good

thing.

‘dear aunt, your affectionate solicitude is very precious to me. but do not think i am unhappy, i might almost

say the contrary is the case, for the trial through which juliette has just gone has had its effect on me too. those

words of scripture which i used to repeat without very well understanding them, have suddenly become dear to me:

“cursed be the man that trusteth in man.” long before coming across them in my bible, i had read them on a little

christmas card which jérôme sent me when he was not quite twelve years old and when i was just fourteen. beside

the bunch of flowers which was painted on it, and which we then thought lovely, there were these lines, from a

paraphrase of corneille’s:

‘quel charme vainqueur du monde

vers dieu m’élève aujourd’hui?

malheureux l’homme qui fonde

sur les hom

mes son appui!

‘i confess i infinitely prefer the simple text out of jeremiah. no doubt, jérôme chose the card at the time

without paying much attention to the lines. but if i am to judge from his letters, his frame of mind at present is not

unlike mine, and every day i thank god that he should have brought us both nearer to him with one and the same

stroke.

‘i have not forgotten our conversation, and i am not writing to him as much as i used to do, so as not to disturb

him in his work. you will no doubt think that i make up for it by talking about him all the more; lest i should go on

too long, i will end my letter at once. don’t scold me too much this time.’

what reflections this letter aroused in me! i cursed my aunt’s meddling interference (what was

the conversation to which alissa alluded, and which was the cause of her silence?) and the clumsy

good nature which made her send the letter on to me. it was already hard enough for me to bear

alissa’s silence, and oh! would it not have been better a thousand times to have left me in ignorance

that she was writing to another person what she no longer cared to say to me? everything in the letter

irritated me; to hear her speak to my aunt so easily of our little private affairs, as well as the

naturalness of her tone, her composure, her seriousness, her pleasantry.

‘no, no, my dear fellow! nothing in the letter irritates you, except the fact that it isn’t addressed

to you,’ said abel, who was my daily companion; for abel was the only person to whom i could

speak, and in my loneliness i was constantly drawn to him afresh by weakness, by a wistful longing

for sympathy, by diffidence, and, when i was at fault, by my belief in his advice, in spite of the

difference of our natures – or rather, because of it.

‘let us study this paper,’ said he, spreading the letter out on his writing table.

three nights had already passed over my vexation; for four days i had managed to keep it to

myself! i led up almost naturally to a point when abel said to me:

‘we’ll consign the juliette-teissières affair to the fire of love – eh? we know what that flame is

worth. upon my word, teissières seems just the kind of moth to singe his wings in it.’

‘that will do!’ said i, for his banter was very distasteful to me. ‘let’s go on to the rest.’

‘the rest,’ he said. ‘the rest is all for you. you haven’t much to complain of. not a line, not a

word, that isn’t filled with the thought of you. you may say the whole letter is addressed to you;

when aunt félicie sent it on to you, she merely sent it to its rightful owner; alissa writes to the good

lady as a make-shift, in default of you. what can corneille’s lines (which, by the way, are by racine)

matter to your aunt? i tell you it’s to you she is talking; she’s saying it all to you. you’re nothing but

a simpleton if a fortnight hence your cousin isn’t writing to you just as lengthily, as easily, as

agreeably...’

‘she doesn’t seem to be taking the right road!’

‘it only depends upon you for her to take it! do you want my advice? don’t say a word for ever

so long, of love or marriage; don’t you see that since her sister’s misfortune, it’s that she’s set

against? harp on the fraternal string and talk to her untiringly of robert – since you have the patience

to look after the young ass. just go on amusing her intelligence; all the rest will follow. ah! if it were

only i who had to write to her!’

‘you aren’t worthy to love her.’

nevertheless, i followed abel’s advice; and, indeed, alissa’s letters soon began to get more

animated; but i could not hope for any real joy on her part, or that she would let herself go without

reserve, until juliette’s situation, if not her happiness, was assured.

the news which alissa gave me of her sister improved, however. her marriage was to take place

in july; alissa wrote to me that she supposed that at this date abel and i would be engaged in our

studies. i understood that she judged it better for us not to appear at the ceremony, so we alleged

some examination or other, and contented ourselves with sending our good wishes.

about a fortnight after the marriage this is what alissa wrote to me:

‘my dear jérôme,

‘imagine my astonishment yesterday when, on opening at random the charming racine you gave me, i found

the four lines which are on your little old christmas card that i had kept in my bible for the last ten years:

‘quel charme vainqueur du monde

vers dieu m’élève aujourd’hui?

malheureux l’homme qui fonde

sur les hommes son appui!

‘i had thought they came from a paraphrase of corneille’s, and i admit i didn’t think much of them. but as i

went on reading the fourth cantique spirituel, i came across some verses which are so beautiful, that i cannot resist

copying them. no doubt you know them already, if i am to judge from the indiscreet initials which you have put in

the margin of the book.’ [it is true that i had taken the habit of sprinkling my books and alissa’s with the first letter

of her name, opposite all the passages which i liked and which i wanted her to know.] ‘never mind! i write them

out for my own pleasure. i was a little vexed at first to see that you had pointed out what i thought was a discovery

of my own, but this naughty feeling soon gave way to my pleasure in thinking that you like them as much as i do.

as i copy i feel as if i were reading them over with you.

‘de la sagesse immortelle

la voix tonne et nous instruit:

enfants des hommes, dit-elle,

de vos soins quel est le fruit?

par quelle erreur, âmes vaines,

du plus pur sang de vos veines

achetez-vous si souvent,

non un pain qui vous repaisse,

mais une ombre qui vous laisse

plus affamés que devant?

‘le pain que je vous propose

sert aux anges d’aliment ;

dieu lui-même le compose

de la fleur de son froment.

c’est ce pain si délectable

que ne sert point à sa table

le monde que vous suivez.

je l’offre à qui veut me suivre :

approchez. voulez-vous vivre?

prenez, mangez et vivez.

★

‘l’âme heureusement captive

sous ton joug trouve la paix,

et s’abreuve d’une eau vive

qui ne s’épuise jamais.

chacun peut boire en cette onde ,

elle invite tout le monde;

mais nous courons follement

chercher des sources bourbeuses ,

ou des citernes trompeuses

d’où l’eau fuit à tout moment.

‘how beautiful! jérôme, how beautiful! do you really think it as beautiful as i do? a little note in my edition

says that mme de maintenon, when she heard mlle d’aumale sing this hymn, seemed struck with admiration,

“dropped a few tears”, and made her repeat a part of the piece over again. i know it by heart now, and never weary

of saying it to myself. my only regret is that i haven’t heard you read it.

‘the news from our travellers continues to be very good. you know already how much juliette enjoyed

bayonne and biarritz in spite of the fearful heat. since then they have visited fontarrabia, stayed at burgos and

crossed the pyrenees twice. now she writes me an enthusiastic letter from montserrat. they think of spending ten

days longer at barcelona before they return to nîmes, where édouard wants to be back before september, so as to

be able to look after the vintage.

‘father and i have been settled at fongueusemare for a week now, and we expect miss ashburton and robert

in four days’ time. you know the poor boy has failed in his examination; not that it was difficult, but the examiner

asked him such peculiar questions that it confused him; i cannot believe, after what you told me about his keenness

for work, that he hadn’t prepared properly, but this examiner, it appears, takes a pleasure in putting people out.

‘as for your successes, my dear, i can hardly say that i congratulate you. i have so much confidence in you,

jérôme! whenever i think of you, my heart fills with hope. will you be able to begin the work you speak about at

once?

‘nothing is changed here in the garden; but the house seems very empty! you will have understood – won’t

you? – why i asked you not to come this year. i feel it is better so; i tell myself so every day, for it is hard to stay so

long without seeing you. sometimes i look for you involuntarily; i stop in the middle of what i am reading, i turn

my head quickly... it seems as though you were there!

‘i continue my letter. it is night, everybody is asleep; i am sitting up late writing to you, before the open

window. the garden is full of scents; the air is warm. do you remember when we were children, whenever we saw

or heard anything very beautiful, we used to say to ourselves, “thanks, lord, for having created it.” tonight i said

to myself with my whole soul, “thanks, lord, for having made the night so beautiful!” and suddenly i wanted you

there – i felt you there, close to me – with such violence that perhaps you felt it.

‘yes, you were right in your letter when you said, “in generous hearts admiration is lost in gratitude.” how

many other things i should like to write to you! i think of the radiant land juliette speaks of. i think of other lands,

vaster, more radiant still, more desert-like. a strange conviction dwells in me that one day – but i cannot tell how –

you and i will see together some great mysterious land – but ah! i cannot tell which...’

no doubt you can easily imagine with what transports of joy i read this letter, with what sobs of

love! other letters followed. alissa, it is true, thanked me for not coming to fongueusemare; it is true

she begged me not to try and see her again this year, but she regretted my absence, she wanted me;

from page to page there sounded the same appeal. where did i find strength to resist it? in abel’s

advice, no doubt, and in the fear of suddenly ruining my joy, and in an instinctive stiffening of my

will against the inclinations of my heart.

from the letters which followed i copy all that bears upon my tale:

‘dear jérôme,

‘my heart melts with joy as i read you. i was just going to answer your letter from orvieto, when the one from

perugia and the one from assisi arrived together. my mind has turned traveller; it is only my body that makes

believe to stay behind here; in truth i am with you on the white roads of umbria. i set out with you in the morning

and watch the dawn with a fresh-created eye... did you really call me on the terrace of cortona? i heard you. we

were terribly thirsty on the hills above assisi, but how good i thought the franciscan’s glass of water! oh, my

friend! it is through you that i look at all things. how much i like what you write about st francis! yes, what we

should seek for is indeed – is it not? – an exaltation and not an emancipation of the mind. the latter goes only with

an abominable pride. our ambition should lie not in revolt but in service.

‘the news from nîmes is so good, that it seems to me i have god’s permission to give way to joy. the only

shadow this summer is my poor father’s condition. in spite of all my care he still keeps sad, or rather he relapses

into sadness the moment i leave him to himself, and it becomes less and less easy to get him out of it. all the joys of

nature that are about us speak a language which has become foreign to him; he no longer even makes any effort to

understand it. miss ashburton is well. i read your letters aloud to them both; each one gives us enough to talk about

for three days, and then comes a fresh one.

‘robert left us the day before yesterday. he is going to spend the rest of his holidays with his friend r—,

whose father is at the head of a model farm. certainly the life we lead here is not very amusing for him. i could only

encourage him in his idea when he spoke of leaving.

‘...i have so much to say to you. i thirst for a talk, such an endless talk! sometimes i can find no words, no

distinct ideas – this evening i am writing as in a dream – and all i realize is an almost oppressive sense of infinite

riches to bestow and to receive.

‘how did we manage to be silent during so many long months? no doubt we were hibernating. oh! may that

frightful winter of our silence be for ever past! now that i have found you again, life, thought, our souls –

everything seems beautiful, adorable, inexhaustibly fertile.

‘12th september.

‘i have got your letter from pisa. the weather is splendid here, too. never before have i thought normandy so

beautiful. the day before yesterday i took an enormously long walk, going across country at random. when i came

in i was not so much tired as excited, almost intoxicated with sun and joy. how beautiful the haystacks were in the

burning sun! there was no need to imagine myself in italy for me to think everything i saw wonderful.

‘yes, dear friend, it is as you say, an exhortation to joy which i hear and understand in nature’s “mingled

hymn”. i hear it in every bird’s song; i breathe it in the scent of every flower, and i have reached the point of

conceiving adoration as the only form of prayer, repeating over and over again with st francis: “my god! my god!

e non altro” – and nothing else – my heart filled with inexpressible love.

‘don’t be afraid, though, of my becoming an ignoramus. i have been reading a great deal lately; with the help

of a few rainy days i have, as it were, folded my adoration up into my books. finished malebranche and began at

once on leibnitz’ letters to clarke. then, as a rest, read shelley’s cenci – without pleasure; read the sensitive

plant too. i shall make you very indignant, but i would give nearly all shelley and all byron for keats’ four odes,

which we read together last summer; just as i would give all hugo for a few of baudelaire’s sonnets. the words

“great poet” have no meaning – what is important is to be a pure poet. oh, my brother! thank you for having taught

me to understand and love these things.

‘no, don’t cut short your journey for the sake of a few days’ meeting. seriously, it is better that we should not

see each other again just yet. believe me, if you were with me i could not think of you more. i should be sorry to

give you pain, but i have come to the point of no longer wanting your presence – now. shall i confess? if i knew

you were coming this evening i should fly away.

‘oh! don’t ask me to explain this feeling, please, i only know that i think of you unceasingly (which ought to be

enough for your happiness) and that i am happy so.’

★

a short time after this last letter, and immediately after my return from italy, i was called up for

my military service and sent to nancy. i did not know a living soul there, but i was glad to be alone,

for it was thus more clearly apparent to my lover’s pride and to alissa herself, that her letters were

my only refuge, and that the thought of her was, as ronsard would have said, ‘my only entelechy’.

to tell the truth i bore the pretty severe discipline to which we were subjected very cheerily. i

stiffened myself to endurance, and in my letters to alissa complained only of absence. we even

found in this long separation a trial worthy of our valour. ‘you who never complain,’ wrote alissa:

‘you whom i cannot imagine faltering.’ what would i not have endured to prove the truth of her

words?

almost a year had gone by since our last meeting. she seemed not to consider this, but to count

her time of waiting only from now onwards. i reproached her with it.

‘was i not with you in italy?’ she replied. ‘ungrateful! i never left you for a single day. you must understand

that now, for a time, i can’t follow you any longer, and it is that, only that, which i call separation. i try hard, it is

true, to imagine you as a soldier. i can’t succeed. at best i see you in the evening in your little room in the rue

gambetta, writing or reading – but no, not even that! in reality it is only at fongueusemare or le havre that i can

see you, in a year from now.

‘a year! i don’t count the days that have already gone by, my hope fastens its gaze on that point in the future,

which is slowly, slowly, drawing nearer. do you remember the low wall that shelters the chrysanthemums, at the

end of the garden, and how sometimes we used to venture along the top of it? juliette and you walked on it as

boldly as though you were mussulmans going straight to paradise; as for me, i was seized with giddiness after the

first step or two, and you used to call to me from below, “don’t look at your feet! eyes front! don’t stop! look at

the goal!” and then, at last – and it was more of a help than your words – you would climb on to the wall at the

other end and wait for me. then i no longer trembled; i no longer felt giddy; i no longer saw anything but you; i ran

until i reached your open arms.

‘without faith in you, jérôme, what would become of me? i have need to feel you strong; need to lean on you.

don’t weaken.’

out of a sort of spirit of defiance, which made us deliberately prolong our time of waiting – out of

fear, too, of an unsatisfactory meeting – we agreed that i should spend my few days’ leave at

christmas with miss ashburton, in paris.

i have already told you that i do not give all her letters. here is one i received about the middle of

february:

‘great excitement the day before yesterday in passing along the rue de paris to see abel’s book, very

ostentatiously displayed in m—’s shop window. you had indeed announced its appearance, but i could not believe

in its reality. i wasn’t able to resist going in; but the title seemed to me so ridiculous that i hesitated to name it to the

shopman; i was, in fact, on the point of going out again with any other book, no matter what. fortunately a little pile

of wantonness was set out for customers near the counter, and i took a copy and put down my money, without

having had to speak.

‘i am grateful to abel for not having sent me his book! i have not been able to look through it without shame;

shame, not so much because of the book itself – in which, after all, i see more folly than indecency – but shame to

think that abel, abel vautier, your friend, should have written it. i searched in vain, from page to page, for the

“great talent” which the temps reviewer has discovered in it. in our little society of le havre, where abel is often

mentioned, people say that the book is very successful. i hear his incurable futility of mind called “lightness” and

“grace”; of course, i keep prudently silent, and have told no one but you that i have read it. poor pasteur vautier,

who at first looked deeply grieved – and very rightly – is now beginning to wonder whether, instead, he hasn’t

cause to feel proud; and all his acquaintance are doing their best to persuade him so. yesterday, at aunt plantier’s,

when mme v— said to him abruptly: “you must be very happy, pasteur, over your son’s wonderful success!” he

answered rather abashed, “oh! i haven’t got as far as that yet!” “but you will! but you will!” said aunt, innocently

no doubt, but in such an encouraging voice that everyone began to laugh, even he.

‘what will it be when the new abelard is brought out? i hear it is going to be acted at some theatre or other on

the boulevards, and that the papers are beginning to talk of it already! poor abel! is that really the success he

wants? will he be satisfied with that?

‘yesterday in the interior consolation i read these words: “all human glory, indeed all temporal honour, all

worldly grandeur, compared with thy eternal glory, is vanity and foolishness.” and i thought, “oh, god! i thank

thee that thou hast chosen jérôme for thy celestial glory, compared with which the other is vanity and

foolishness.”‘

the weeks and months went by in monotonous occupations; but as there was nothing on which i

could fasten my thoughts but memories or hopes, i hardly noticed how slow the time was, how long

the hours.

my uncle and alissa were to go in june to the neighbourhood of nîmes on a visit to juliette, who

was expecting her baby about that time. less favourable news of her health made them hasten their

departure.

‘your last letter, addressed to le havre’ [wrote alissa], ‘arrived after we had left. i cannot explain by what

accident it reached me here only a week later. during all that week i went about with a soul that was only half a

soul, a shivering, pitiful, beggarly soul. oh, my brother! i am only truly myself – more than myself – when i am

with you.

‘juliette is better again. we are daily expecting her confinement, without undue anxiety. she knows that i am

writing to you this morning. the day after our arrival at aigues-vives, she said to me: “and jérôme? what has

become of him? does he write to you still?” and as i couldn’t but tell her the truth: “when you write to him,” she

said, “tell him that...” she hesitated a moment, and then, smiling very sweetly, went on: “that i am cured.” i was

rather afraid that in her letters, which are always so gay, she might be acting a part and taking herself in by it. the

things she makes her happiness out of nowadays are so different from the things she had dreamt of, the things on

which it seemed her happiness ought to have depended! ...ah! this, that we call happiness, how intimate a part of

the soul it is, and of what little importance are the outside elements which seem to go to its making! i spare you all

the reflections i make during my walks along the garrigue, when what astonishes me most is that i don’t feel

happier; juliette’s happiness ought to fill me with joy... why does my heart give way to an incomprehensible

melancholy against which i am unable to fight? the very beauty of the country, which i feel, which at any rate i

recognize, adds still further to this inexplicable sadness. when you wrote to me from italy, i was able to see

everything through you; now i feel as if i were depriving you of whatever i look at without you. and then at

fongueusemare or at le havre i had made myself a kind of rough-weather virtue, for use on rainy days; here, this

virtue seems out of place; and i feel uneasily that there is no occasion for it. the laughter of the people and of the

country jars upon me; perhaps what i call being sad is simply not being so noisy as they. no doubt there was some

pride in my joy formerly, for at present, in the midst of this alien gaiety, what i feel is not unlike humiliation.

‘i have scarcely been able to pray since i have been here: i have the childish feeling that god is no longer in the

same place. good-bye; i must stop now. i am ashamed of this blasphemy, and of my weakness, and of my sadness,

and of confessing them, and of writing you all this which i should tear up tomorrow if it were not posted tonight...’

the next letter spoke only of the birth of her niece, whose godmother she was to be, of juliette’s

joy and of my uncle’s, but of her own feelings there was no further question.

then there were letters dated from fongueusemare again, where juliette came to stay with her in

july.

‘édouard and juliette left us this morning. it is my little niece whom i regret most; when i see her again in six

months’ time i shall no longer recognize every one of her movements; she had scarcely one which i hadn’t seen her

invent. growth is always so mysterious and surprising; it is through failure of attention that we are not oftener

astonished at it. how many hours i have spent, bending over the little cradle, where so many hopes lie centred. by

what selfishness, by what conceit, by what lack of desire for improvement is it that development ceases so soon, and

that every creature becomes definitive, when still so far from god? oh! if we could, if we would but approach

nearer to him... think, what emulation!

‘juliette seems very happy. i was grieved at first to find that she had given up her piano and her reading, but

édouard teissières doesn’t like music and hasn’t much taste for books; no doubt juliette is acting wisely in not

seeking her pleasure where he cannot follow her. on the other hand, she takes an interest in her husband’s

occupations and he tells her all about his business. it has developed greatly this year; it pleases him to say that it is

because of his marriage, which has brought him an important clientèle at le havre. robert accompanied him the

last time he went on a business journey. édouard is very kind to him, declares he understands his character and

doesn’t despair of seeing him take seriously to this kind of work.

‘father is much better; the sight of his daughter’s happiness has made him young again; he is interesting

himself again in the farm and the garden, and has just asked me to go on with our reading aloud, which we had

begun with miss ashburton and which was interrupted by the teissières’ visit. i am reading them baron hübner’s

travels, and enjoy them very much myself. i shall have more time for my own reading too; but i want some advice

from you; this morning i took up several books, one after the other, without feeling a taste for any of them!’

alissa’s letters, henceforward, became more troubled, more pressing.

‘the fear of troubling you prevents me from telling you how much i want you,’ [she wrote towards the end of

the summer]. ‘every day that has to be got through before i see you again weighs on me, oppresses me. another

two months. it seems longer than all the rest of the time which has already gone by without you! everything i take

up to while away the hours, seems nothing but an absurd stop-gap, and i cannot set myself to anything. my books

are without virtue and without charm; my walks have no attraction; nature has lost her glamour; the garden is

emptied of colour, of scent.

‘i envy you your fatigue-parties and your compulsory drills which are constantly dragging you out of yourself,

tiring you, hurrying along your days, and, at night, flinging you, wearied out, to your sleep. the stirring description

you gave me of the manoeuvres haunts me. for the last few nights i have been sleeping badly, and several times i

have been awakened with a start by the bugles sounding reveille... i actually heard them. i can so well imagine the

intoxication of which you speak, the morning rapture, the lightheadedness almost... how beautiful the plateau of

malzéville must have been in the icy radiance of dawn!

i'm a little worse for some time; oh! nothing serious. i think i simply find the waiting very difficult.

and six weeks later:

‘this is my last letter, my friend. however uncertain the date of your return may be, it cannot be delayed much

longer. i shall not be able to write to you any more. i should have preferred our meeting to have been at

fongueusemare, but the weather has broken; it is very cold, and father talks of nothing but going back to town. now

that juliette and robert are no longer with us we could easily take you in, but it is better that you should go to aunt

félicie, who will be glad, too, to have you.

‘as the day of our meeting comes near, i look forward to it with growing anxiety, almost with apprehension. i

seem now to dread your coming that i so longed for; i try not to think of it; i imagine your ring at the bell, your step

on the stairs, and my heart stops beating or hurts me... and whatever you do, don’t expect me to be able to speak to

you. i feel my past comes to an end here; i see nothing beyond; my life stops...’

four days later, however – a week, that is, before i was liberated from my military service – i

received one more letter, a very short one:

‘my friend, i entirely approve of your not wanting to prolong beyond measure your stay at le havre and the

time of our first meeting. what should we have to say to each other that we have not already written? so if the

business connected with your examination calls you to paris as early as the 28th, don’t hesitate, don’t even regret

that you are not able to give us more than two days. shall we not have all our lives?’