ANNETTE
AND
SYLVIE

Being Volume One of

The Soul Enchanted

By

ROMAIN ROLLAND

Translated from the French by

BEN RAY REDMAN

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1925

Annette and Sylvie is the prelude of a work in several volumes, that bears the title: The Soul Enchanted.

Love, the first born creatures,
Love, who later shall engender Thought. . . .

RIG-VEDA

CONTENTS

[PART ONE]
CHAPTER [I]
CHAPTER [II]
CHAPTER [III]
CHAPTER [IV]
CHAPTER [V]
CHAPTER [VI]
CHAPTER [VII]
CHAPTER [VIII]
CHAPTER [IX]
CHAPTER [X]
CHAPTER [XI]
CHAPTER [XII]
[PART TWO]
CHAPTER [I]
CHAPTER [II]
CHAPTER [III]
CHAPTER [IV]
CHAPTER [V]
CHAPTER [VI]
CHAPTER [VII]
CHAPTER [VIII]
CHAPTER [IX]
CHAPTER [X]
CHAPTER [XI]
CHAPTER [XII]
CHAPTER [XIII]
CHAPTER [XIV]
CHAPTER [XV]
CHAPTER [XVI]
CHAPTER [XVII]

FOREWORD

Upon the threshold of a new journey which, without being as long as that of "Jean-Christophe," will include more than one stage, I would remind my readers of the friendly prayer which I addressed to them at a turning-point in the story of my musician. At the commencement of Revolt, I admonished them to consider each volume as one chapter of a moving work, whose thought unrolled only as rapidly as the life represented. Citing the old adage, La fin loue la vie, et le soir le jour, I added: When we shall have made an end, you may judge the worth of our effort.

Of course, I understand that each volume has its own character, that it must be judged separately as a work of art; but it would be premature to judge the general thought from a single volume. When I write a novel, I choose a human being with whom I feel certain affinities,—or, rather, it is he who chooses me. Once this person has been selected, I leave him perfectly free, I beware of mingling my personality with his. It is a weighty burden, a personality that one has borne for more than half a century. The divine boon of art is to deliver us from this burden, by giving us other souls to quaff, other lives to assume—(our Indian friends would say, "other of our lives"; for all is in each . . .).

So, when I have once adopted Jean-Christophe, or Colas, or Annette Rivière, I am no more than the secretary of their thoughts. I listen to them, I see them act, I see through their eyes. In the measure that they come to know their own hearts and men, I learn with them; when they make mistakes, I stumble; when they recover themselves, I pick myself up, and we set off again upon the road. I do not say that this road is the best. But this road is ours. Whether or not Christophe, Colas and Annette are right, Christophe, Colas and Annette are life is not the least of justifications.

Seek here neither thesis nor theory. Behold in this work merely the inner history of a life that is sincere, long, fertile in joys and sorrows, not exempt from contradictions, abounding in errors, yet always struggling to attain, in default of inaccessible Truth, that harmony of spirit which is our supreme truth.

R.R.

August, 1922.

ANNETTE AND SYLVIE

[PART ONE]

[I]

She was seated beside the window, with her back turned to the light, so that the rays of the setting sun fell upon the firm column of her neck. She had just come indoors. For the first time in months, Annette had spent the day in the open, tramping and finding intoxication in the spring sunlight. Tipsy sunlight, like pure wine, diluted by no shadow of leafless trees, and brightened by the cool air of the winter that had flown. Her head was humming, her veins pulsing, and her eyes were drenched in torrents of light. Red and gold beneath her closed eyelids. Gold and red in her body. Immobile, bemused, upon her chair, for an instant she lost consciousness. . . .

A pool, in the midst of woods, with a patch of sunlight like an eye. Around about, a circle of trees, their trunks befurred with moss. She must bathe her body; she finds herself undressed. The icy hand of the water rubs her feet and knees. Voluptuous torpor. In the pool of red and gold she contemplates her nudity. . . . A feeling of shame, obscure and indefinable, as though other spying eyes were watching her. To escape them she advances further into the water, which rises to her chin. The sinuous water becomes a living embrace; and slippery creepers twine themselves about her legs. She seeks to free herself, she sinks into the slime. Above, the patch of sunlight sleeps upon the pool. Angrily she thrusts her foot against the bottom and rises to the surface. The water now is gray, dull, and muddied; but still the sunlight on its gleaming surface. . . . Annette grasps a willow branch that overhangs the pool, to lift herself free from the watery contamination. The leafy limb covers her naked back and shoulders like a wing. The shadow of night falls, and the air is chill Upon her neck. . . .

She emerges from her trance; only a few moments have flown since she sank into it. The sun is disappearing behind the hills of Saint-Cloud. The cool of evening has come.

Sobered, Annette rises, shivering a little; and, wrinkling her brows in irritation at the lapse she has allowed herself, she goes to sit down before the fire, within the depths of her room. It is a pleasant wood fire, designed to distract the eye and to furnish company rather than to give warmth; for from the garden, through the open window, with the damp breeze of an early spring evening, there enters the melodious chattering of homing birds settling down to sleep. Annette dreams; but this time her eyes are open. She has recovered a foothold in her accustomed world. She is in her own house: she is Annette Rivière. And, as she leans towards the flame that reddens her youthful face, teasing with her foot the black cat that stretches out its gold-barred belly, she once more becomes conscious of her sorrow, that for an instant had been forgotten; she recalls the image (escaped from her heart) of the person she has lost. In deep mourning, with the trace of grief's passage not yet effaced from her brow or from the corners of her mouth, with her lower lids still slightly swollen from recent tears; but healthy, fresh, and bathed in sap like youthful nature itself, this vigorous young girl who is not beautiful but well made—with heavy chestnut hair, lightly tanned neck, starry eyes and flower-like cheeks—seeking to enfold anew her wandering glance and round shoulders in the dispersed veils of her melancholy—this girl, sitting thus, seems like a young widow watching the departure of the beloved shade.

Widow, indeed, Annette was in her heart; but he whose shade her fingers sought to detain was her father.

Six months had passed already since she had lost him. Towards the end of autumn, Raoul Rivière, still young (he was not quite fifty), had been carried off in two days by an attack of uremia. Although for several years he had been obliged to show some consideration for the health he had abused, he had not expected so brusque a lowering of the curtain. He was a Parisian architect, an old student of the Villa Romaine, handsome, congenitally cunning and possessed of inordinate desires, lionized in drawing-rooms and honored by the official world; and all his life long he had known how to collect commissions, honors and windfalls without ever appearing to seek them. His was a typically Parisian face, popularized by photographs, magazine sketches and caricatures,—with bulging forehead, swelling at the temples, head lowered like a charging bull; round, protuberant eyes with an audacious glance; white bushy hair cut in a brush, and a little tuft of hair below his laughing, voracious mouth; the whole expression being marked by wit, insolence, charm, and effrontery. In the Parisian world of arts and pleasures, he was known by everyone. And yet none knew him. He was a man of dual nature, who knew admirably how to adapt himself to society for the sake of exploiting it; but he also knew how to conduct his hidden life as a thing apart. He was a man of strong passions and powerful vices who managed to cultivate them all, while taking care to reveal nothing that might scare away his clients; he had his secret museum (fas ac nefas), but only the rarest initiates were allowed a glimpse of it; he cared not a hang for public taste and morality, but at the same time he conformed to them in his outward life and in his official works. There was none who knew him, neither among his friends nor among his enemies. . . . His enemies? He had none. Rivals at the most, who had smarted that he might forge ahead. But they bore him no malice: having got the better of them, he was such an adept at the art of wheedling that they almost smiled and begged his pardon, like those timid persons on whose feet one treads. Hard and cunning as he was, he had accomplished the feat of remaining on good terms with the competitors he supplanted, and with the women he abandoned.

In his own household he had been somewhat less fortunate. His wife had had the bad taste to suffer from his infidelities. Although it seemed to him that she should have had ample time, during the twenty-five years of their married life, to habituate herself to them, she never learned resignation. Morosely virtuous, with a manner slightly cold as was her Lyonnaise beauty, possessed of feelings that were strong but concentrated, she lacked all adroitness in holding him; and she had still less of that eminently practical talent of ignoring what she could not help. She was too self-respecting to complain, yet she could not resign herself to hiding from him the fact that she knew and suffered. As he was sensitive (at least he believed he was) he avoided thinking of this; but he bore her a grudge for not knowing better how to veil her egotism. For some years they had lived practically apart; but by tacit accord they hid this from the eyes of the world, and even from their daughter, Annette, who never became cognizant of the situation. She had not sought to fathom her parents' misunderstanding; it was distasteful to her. And adolescence has enough preoccupations of its own. A fig for those of others! . . .

Raoul Rivière's cleverest act was winning his daughter to his side. Naturally, he made no move in this direction; it was a triumph of art. Not a word of reproach, not an allusion to the wounds inflicted by Madame Rivière; he was chivalrous, he left his daughter to find out these things for herself. Nor did she fail to do so, for she too was under her fathers spell. And how could she fail to decide against the woman who, being his wife, was clumsy enough to spoil their happiness! In this unequal battle poor Madame Rivière was beaten in advance; and she crowned her defeat by being the first to die. Raoul remained sole master of the field,—and of his daughter's heart. For the past five years Annette had lived morally enveloped by her amiable father who was devoted to her, and who, intending no harm, lavished on her those charms that were natural to him. His generosity to her was augmented when he found less opportunity to employ these charms outside; for during the last two years he was kept closer to home by warnings of the illness that was to carry him off.

Nothing, then, had troubled the warm intimacy that united father and daughter, and filled Annette's unawakened heart. She was between twenty-three and twenty-four, but her heart seemed younger; its development had not been forced. Perhaps, like all those who have a long future before them, and because she felt a profound life pulsing within her, she let that life amass itself, in no hurry to take stock of it.

She took after both her parents: from her father she came by the outline of her features and the charming smile, which in his case promised more than he realized, and in hers, as she was still pure, more than she wished; while from her mother she inherited a surface tranquillity, a poise of manner, and a mind that was serious despite its extreme freedom. Doubly alluring she was, with the charm of the one and the reserve of the other. It was impossible to guess which of the two temperaments was dominant in her. Her true nature still remained unknown,—to herself as well as to others. None suspected her hidden universe. She was an Eve in the garden, half slumbering. She had not yet become conscious of the desires that were within her; nothing had awakened them, for nothing had disturbed them. It seemed that she had but to stretch out her arm to gather them. She never tried, lulled by their happy humming. Perhaps she did not wish to try. . . . Who knows how far one tries to dupe oneself? One would rather not see the disturbing things within one. . . . And she preferred to ignore that interior sea. The Annette whom people knew, the Annette who knew herself, was a very calm, reasonable, well-regulated little person, mistress of herself, who had her own will and her own independent judgment, but who, so far, had never had occasion to oppose these to the established rules of the world or of her household.

Without in any way neglecting the duties of social life, nor being indifferent to its pleasures, which she enjoyed with a healthy appetite, she had felt the need of a more serious activity. She busied herself with fairly thorough studies, with following university courses, with passing examinations and taking a double degree. Possessed of a lively intelligence that demanded occupation, she loved exact studies, particularly the sciences, in which she was highly gifted. Perhaps it was that her healthy nature, with an instinct for equilibrium, felt the necessity of opposing the strict discipline of a clear method and sharply defined ideas to the disquieting attraction of that inner life which she feared to face, and which, despite her precautions, came beating on her door at each halt of the inactive mind. This clear, accurate, regular activity satisfied her for the moment. She did not care to speculate on what would follow. Marriage held no attraction for her; she avoided thought of it. Her father smiled at her resolutions; but he was disinclined to oppose them, for he found them to his own advantage.

[II]

The disappearance of Raoul Rivière shook to its foundations the well-ordered edifice of which, without Annette's realizing it, he was the principal pillar. She was not unfamiliar with the face of death. Five years before she had made its acquaintance, when her mother had left her. But the features of this face are not always the same. After spending several months in a private hospital, Madame Rivière had departed silently, as she had lived, guarding the secret of her last terrors as she had the trials of her life; leaving behind her, in the candid egotism of the young girl, along with a gentle sorrow that resembled the first rains of spring, an impression of relief that was unconfessed, and the shadow of a remorse that was soon to be lost in the joy of living.

Quite different was the end of Raoul Rivière. Stricken in the midst of a happiness that he felt sure of enjoying for a long time still, he brought to his departure no philosophy. He greeted his sufferings and the approach of death with cries of revolt. Until the supreme breath of a gasping agony, like that of a galloping horse that climbs a slope, he battled fearfully. Those frightful images were stamped in Annette's burning brain as though in wax. She remained haunted by them at night. In the darkness of her room, in bed, upon the verge of sleep or suddenly awakening, she revived the agony and the face of the dying man with such violence that she was the dying man himself: her eyes were his eyes, her breath was his breath; she no longer distinguished between them; in the eye-sockets she recognized the appeal of a drowning glance. She came close to destruction; but robust youth enjoys such elasticity! The more the cord is stretched, the further flies the arrow of life. The blinding light of those maddening images was extinguished by its own excess, and night fell upon the memory. The features, the voice, the radiance of the vanished man, all had vanished: Annette, determined to exhaust the shadow that was within her, could find no further trace of it. Nothing but herself. She alone. . . . Alone. The Eve of the garden was awakening without the companion at her side,—the man whom she had always felt near her, without seeking to define him; the man who, unknown to her and as yet indistinctly, was assuming the shape of love. And suddenly the garden lost its security. Disquieting breaths from without had entered it; both the breath of death and the breath of life. Annette opened her eyes, as did the world's first men at night, with the apprehension of a thousand unknown dangers ambushed about her, with the instinct of imminent battle. Of a sudden the dormant energies gathered themselves together, and held themselves tensely ready. And her solitude was peopled by passionate forces.

Her equilibrium was destroyed. Her studies, her work, now meant nothing to her; the place that she had accorded them in her life now seemed a mockery. But the other part of her life, which sorrow had just touched, revealed itself to be of immeasurable extent. The shock of the injury had awakened all its fibres: around the wound, opened by the disappearance of the beloved companion, gathered all the forces of love, hidden and unknown; sucked in by the void that had been hollowed out, they came hastening from the distant depths of her being. Surprised by this invasion, Annette strove to evade its significance; she persisted in relating everything to the precise object of her grief: everything,—the sharp, burning stimulus of Nature, whose spring breezes bathed her in moisture; the vague and violent longing for happiness . . . lost or desired?—the arms outstretched towards the absent one; and the bounding heart which yearned for the past . . . or was it the future? But she succeeded only in dissolving her grief into a confused mystery of sorrow, passion, and obscure pleasure. By this she was at once devoured and revolted. . . .

On this evening in late April, she was swept away by revolt. Her rational mind waxed furious at the confused reveries which it had too long left uncontrolled, and of which it saw the danger. It wished to repel them, but this was not easy; they no longer listened; the mind had lost its habit of command. . . . Annette, tearing herself away from contemplation of the fire upon the hearth, from the insidious advance of the night that had completely fallen, stood up, chilly now, and, enveloping herself in a dressing-gown of her father's, she flooded the room with light.

It was Raoul Rivière's old study. Through the open bay-windows, through the sparse young foliage of the trees, one could see the Seine in the darkness, and on its sombre, seemingly immobile mass, the reflections of houses whose windows were being lighted upon the opposite bank, and of the daylight that was dying above the hills of Saint-Cloud. Raoul Rivière, who was a man of taste—although disinclined to use it to satisfy the insipid routine or laughable caprices of his wealthy clients—had chosen for himself, at the gates of Paris, on the Quai de Boulogne, an old Louis XVI mansion that he had had no hand in building. He had contented himself with making it comfortable. His study had also served him admirably for affairs of gallantry, and there was reason to believe that the room had not suffered from lack of use in this capacity. Here Rivière had received more than one amiable visit, suspected by no one; for the chamber had its private entrance from the garden. But for two years the entrance had been useless, and the sole feminine visitor had been Annette. Annette, coming and going, tidying things, pouring water into a vase of flowers, constantly moving about; then suddenly motionless over a book, curled up in her favorite corner of the divan, whence she might silently watch the passage of the sinuous river and, without interrupting her absent-minded reading, carry on an absent-minded conversation with her father. But he, sitting yonder, listless and weary, his sly profile catching her slightest movement from the corner of one eye; he, an old spoiled child who could never admit that, wherever he might be, he was not the center of all thoughts, harassed her with witticisms, wheedling questions, insistent, disturbing, in order to attract Annette's attention to himself and make sure that she was really listening to everything. . . . To the very end, touched and delighted that he could not do without her, she gave up everything else for the sake of devoting herself to him alone. Then he was satisfied; and, sure of his public, he showered upon it the resources of his brilliant mind. He shot off his rockets, he laid bare his memories. Of course, he was careful to select only the most flattering; and he arranged them ad usum Delphini, to the taste of the dauphine, cleverly guessing at her secret curiosities and her sudden fits of bristling repugnance. He told her precisely what she desired to hear; and Annette, all ears, was proud of his confidences. She was quite ready to believe that she possessed more of her father than her mother had ever known. Of his intimate life's story she remained, so she thought, the sole trustee.

But, since her father's death, another trust had been left in her hands: all his papers. Annette had no desire to learn what they contained. Her piety told her that they did not belong to her; but another sentiment whispered the contrary. In any event, it was necessary to decide upon their fate: Annette, sole heiress, might die in her turn, and those family papers should not be allowed to fall into strange hands. It was urgent, then, to examine them, and to determine whether they were to be destroyed or preserved. For some days now Annette had been decided on this course. But when she found herself again, at evening, in the room that was permeated by the beloved presence, she lacked courage to do more than drink in this presence for hours, without stirring. She feared, in opening these letters of the past, too direct a contact with reality.

Yet it must be done. This evening she was resolved upon it. In the diffused softness of this over tender night, in which she disturbedly felt the dwindling of her grief, she wished to affirm her possession of the dead man. She went toward the piece of rosewood furniture, more suitable for a coquette than for a worker, a high Louis XV chiffonier, in which Rivière had heaped his letters and intimate papers, disposing them in the seven or eight drawers that made the piece a kind of anticipatory and charming model of the American skyscraper. Annette, kneeling, pulled out the lower drawer; then to examine it the better, she lifted it out completely, and, returning to her place by the fire, she sank to her knees and bent over it. Not a sound in the house. She was living there alone, save for an old aunt who kept house and who scarcely counted: Aunt Victorine, an eclipsed sister of Annette's father, who had always lived to serve Rivière, and who now continued as housekeeper in the service of her niece,—not unlike an old cat, having finally become a part of the furniture of the house, to which she was as much attached, no doubt, as to the human beings. Having retired to her room early in the evening, her distant presence on the floor above, the peaceable coming and going of her old felt-shod feet, disturbed Annette's reveries no more than would a familiar animal.

She began to read, curious and a little troubled. But her orderly instinct and her need of calm, which insisted that everything in and around herself should be clearly arranged, imposed on her, as she picked up and unfolded the letters, a slowness of movement and a detached coldness that succeeded in deluding her for a time at least.

The first letters that she read were from her mother. The fretful tone at first called to mind her earlier impressions, not always kindly, sometimes a little irritated, mixed with some pity for what she had considered, from the height of her reason, a really unhealthy habit of mind: "Poor mama! . . ." But little by little, as she continued her reading, she perceived for the first time that this mental state was not without its causes. Certain allusions to Raoul's infidelities disturbed her. Too partial to pass judgment against her father, she hurried on, pretending that she had not clearly understood. Her filial piety furnished her excellent reasons for averting her eyes. But at the same time she discovered Madame Rivière's earnestness, her wounded tenderness, and she reproached herself for having misunderstood her, and having thus added to the sorrows of this martyr's life.

In the same drawer, side by side, reposed other bundles of letters (some even detached and mingled with her mother's) which Raoul's casual carelessness had jumbled together, as he had done with the correspondents themselves during his life of multiple households.

This time Annette's determined calm was subjected to a difficult test. From every sheet of the new bundle, voices spoke, much more intimate and surer of their power than that of poor Madame Rivière: they affirmed their proprietary rights over Raoul. Annette was revolted by them. Her first movement was to crumple in her hand the letters that she held, and throw them into the fire. But she snatched them out again.

Hesitantly she regarded the sheets, already seared by the flame, that she had rescued. It was certain that if she had had sound reasons, a moment ago, for not wishing to delve into her parents' quarrels, she now had still better ones for wishing to know nothing of her father's liaisons. But these reasons counted for nothing, now. She felt herself personally attacked. On what grounds, how or why, she could not have said. Bent over, motionless, wrinkling the end of her nose, her face pushed forward in a disgusted pout, like an irritated cat, she trembled with desire to throw back into the fire the insolent papers that she clutched in her fist. But, as her fingers loosened their hold, she could not resist the temptation of glancing at them. And then, suddenly decided, she opened her hand, unfolded the letters again, meticulously smoothing out with one finger the creases she had made. . . . And she read,—she read all.

[III]

With repulsion (and not without attraction, too) Annette witnessed the passage of those love affairs of which she had known nothing. They formed a motley and fantastic troop. In love as in art, Raoul's caprice was "period color." Annette recognized certain names belonging to her own world; and with hostility she recalled the smiles and caresses that she used to receive from certain favorites. Others belonged upon a less lofty social level; their spelling was no less free than the sentiments they expressed. Annette's disdainful pout was accentuated; but her mind, with sharp and mocking eyes like her father's, saw the comic aspect of these women who, leaning forward, with a wisp of hair in their eyes and the tip of their tongues thrust out, made their pens gallop over the paper. All these adventures, some a little longer, some a little shorter, but none very long after all, passed, succeeded one another, and effaced one another. Annette was grateful for that,—wounded, but disdainful.

She was not yet at the end of her discoveries. In another drawer, sedulously put apart (more carefully, she was forced to remark, than her mother's letters) a new bundle revealed a more enduring liaison. Although the dates were carelessly indicated, it was easy to see that this correspondence embraced a long period of years. It was in two handwritings: the one, incorrect, slovenly, and backhand, stopped half way through the packet; the other, childish at first, gradually grew firmer, and continued until the last years, even (and this discovery was particularly painful to Annette), up until the last months of her father's life. And this correspondent, who was robbing her of a part of that sacred period of which she had thought herself the unique possessor, this double intruder, was addressing her father as "Father!"

She experienced the sensation of an intolerable wound. With an angry gesture she flung her father's dressing-gown from her shoulders. The letters fell from her hands, and she sank back in her chair with dry eyes and burning cheeks. She did not analyse her own emotions. She was too moved by passion to know what she thought. But, with all her passion, she was thinking: "He deceived me! . . ."

Again she picked up the hateful letters, and this time she did not let them go until she had absorbed them down to the very last line. She read, breathing deeply with her mouth shut, burned by a hidden fire of jealousy, and by another sentiment, still obscure, that had been awakened. Not for a second did the idea occur to her, in penetrating the intimacy of this correspondence, in possessing herself of her father's secrets, that she might be guilty of a moral misdemeanor. Not for a second did she doubt her right. . . . (Her right! The spirit of reason was far away; another power, a despotic one, was speaking!) . . . On the contrary, she felt that it was she who was wounded in her right—in her right—by her father!

She recovered herself, however. She glimpsed, for an instant, the enormity of her pretension. What rights had she over him? What did he owe her? The imperious grumbling of passion answered: "Everything." Argument was useless! Annette, abandoned to her absurd resentment, suffered from the wound, and at the same time felt a bitter joy in those cruel forces that, for the first time, were thrusting their piercing goads into her flesh.

She spent a part of the night in reading. And when she finally went to bed, with her eyes closed she long continued to reread lines and words that made her start, until the deep sleep of youth overcame her, and she lay motionless, outstretched, breathing deeply, very calm, even relieved by the emotional expenditure that she had undergone.

She read again the next day; many times, during the days that followed, she reread the letters which never ceased to occupy her thoughts. Now she could almost reconstruct this life, this double life which had unrolled parallel to her own: the mother, a florist, whom Raoul had furnished funds to open a shop; the daughter, employed by a milliner, or perhaps a seamstress (it was not very clear). The one was named Delphine; and the other, the younger, Sylvie. To judge by their fantastic, negligent style of writing—a style that for all its carelessness was not lacking in charm—they resembled each other. Delphine seemed to have been a pleasant person who, despite a few little ruses that appeared here and there in her letters, could not have wearied Rivière very greatly with her demands. Neither the mother nor the daughter took life tragically. And besides, they seemed sure of Raoul's affection. It was perhaps the best way to conserve it. But this impertinent assurance ruffled Annette no less than did the extreme familiarity of their tone with him.

It was Sylvie who especially absorbed her jealous attention. The other had died, and Annette's pride affected to scorn the kind of intimacy that Delphine had enjoyed with her father; already she was forgetting that, a few days before, the discovery of similar attachments had been a sensible affront to her. Now that a much more profound intimacy had entered the lists, all other rivalries seemed negligible to her. With strained imagination she tried to picture to herself this stranger who, despite her ill will, was only half a stranger. The laughing ease, the calm familiarity of these letters in which Sylvie disposed of her father as though he were entirely her property, made Annette furious; she sought to outstare this insolent unknown so that she might confound her. But the little intruder defied her glance. She seemed to say: "It is my right: I am of his blood."

And the more irritated Annette became, the more this affirmation grew upon her. She fought against it too much not to gradually become accustomed to the combat, and even to the adversary. Finally, she could not get along without it. In the morning the first thought that greeted her upon awakening was of Sylvie; and now the sly voice of her rival said: "I am of your blood."

So clearly did she hear it, so vivid one night was the vision of her unknown sister, that Annette in her half-sleep stretched out her arms to seize her.

And the next day, provoked, protesting, but conquered, the desire held her and would not let her go. She left the house, in search of Sylvie.

[IV]

The address was in the letters. Annette went to the Boulevard du Maine. It was afternoon; Sylvie was at the work-shop. Annette did not dare to hunt her out there. She waited for a few days, and then went back one evening after dinner. Sylvie had not come in, or else she had already gone out again; no one was quite sure. Annette, who had been keyed up by nervous impatience for a whole day preceding each attempt, returned home disappointed; and a secret cowardice advised her to give it up. But she was one of those who never give up anything on which they have once decided; they are all the less willing to yield when the obstacle persists, or when they are afraid of what may happen.

She went again, one day at the end of May, towards nine in the evening. And this time she was told that Sylvie was at home. Six flights. She climbed too quickly, for she did not wish to have time to seek any reasons why she should turn back. At the top, her breath was short. She halted on the last stair. She did not know what she was going to find.

A long general hall, uncarpeted, tiled. At right and left, two doors ajar: voices called from one lodging to the other. Through the door on the left a reflection from the setting sun fell upon the red tiles. That was where Sylvie lived.

Annette knocked. Some one called out, "Come in!" without ceasing to chatter. Annette pushed open the door; the light from the golden heavens struck her full in the face. She saw a young girl, half-dressed, in a skirt, with bare shoulders, and bare feet thrust into red slippers, walking back and forth with her supple, plump back turned towards her. She was looking for something on her toilet table, talking to herself, and powdering her nose with a puff.

"Well now! What is it?" she demanded in a tone that was nasal because of the pins thrust in one corner of her mouth.

Then suddenly, distracted by a lilac branch that was soaking in her water jug, she plunged her nose into it with a grunt of pleasure. Lifting her head, and looking into the mirror with her laughing eyes, she caught sight of Annette behind her, hesitating on the threshold, aureoled in sunlight. "Oh!" she exclaimed, turned around with bare arms lifted above her head, quickly thrust the pins back into her rearranged hair, came forward with hands outstretched, and then suddenly withdrew them, making a gesture of welcome that was cordial but reserved. Annette entered, vainly trying to speak. Sylvie was silent too. She offered her visitor a chair, and slipping into a well-worn, blue-striped dressing-gown, she sat down on the bed opposite her. They looked at each other, and each waited for the other to begin.

How different they were! Each studied the other with sharp, precise, unindulgent eyes which asked: "Who are you?"

Sylvie saw Annette, big, fresh, large of face, her nose a little snubbed, her forehead like that of a young heifer beneath a mass of twisted golden brown hair, with very thick eyebrows, large clear blue eyes that protruded a trifle, and that grew strangely hard at times when waves of emotion swept up from her heart; her mouth was large and her lips firm, with a light down at the corners, and habitually closed in a defensive, watchful, determined pout,—but when they opened they were illumined by a timid, radiant and delightful smile which transformed her whole countenance; her chin, like her cheeks, was full but not fat, both solidly cut; nape, neck and hands were the color of dark honey; beneath her beautiful, firm skin flowed pure blood. A little heavy of figure, her bust a trifle square, she had breasts that were large and full: Sylvie's practised eye felt them under the dress, lingering longest on the fine shoulders, so perfectly proportioned that they formed, with the white, round column of her neck, Annette's greatest physical charm. She knew how to dress, she was turned out with care; an excessive, an over-studied care in Sylvie's opinion: hair well done, not a ringlet out of place, not a hook and eye at fault, everything in order. Sylvie was asking herself: "And is she the same inside?"

Annette saw Sylvie, almost as tall as herself (perhaps just as tall) but thin, slender of figure, with a head that was small for her body, now half-naked under her peignor, and a throat that was slight but plump, while her arms too were plump: balancing herself on her little rump, she sat with her hands clasped over her round knees. Round too were her forehead and her chin; her little nose turned up; her light brown hair grew low on the temples and curled over the cheeks, and little wandering hairs appeared on the nape and the white, very white and slender, neck. A hot-house plant. The two profiles of her face were asymmetrical: the right-hand one was languorous, sentimental,—a sleeping cat; the left-hand one, malicious, watchful,—a biting cat. When she spoke, her upper lip drew back over laughing teeth. And Annette was thinking: "Beware of her bite!"

How different they were! . . . And yet at the first glance both had recognized the expression, the clear eyes, the forehead, the wrinkle at the corner of the mouth,—the father. . . .

Annette, frightened and stiff, took her courage in her hands and, in a pale voice that was chilled by excess of emotion, she told who she was, her name. Sylvie let her speak without ceasing to stare at her; then, calmly, with a slightly cruel smile of her curled upper lip, she said: "I knew it."

Annette started.

"How?"

"I've seen you before, often, with father. . . ."

Before those last words there was an imperceptible hesitation. Perhaps she had been going to say "my father." But she felt an ironic pity for Annette's glance that read her lips. Annette understood, averted her eyes, and blushed, humiliated.

Sylvie missed none of it; she took a leisurely delight in Annette's embarrassment. She continued to speak without haste, studiedly. She said that she had been in the church, at the funeral service, in one of the aisles, and that she had seen everything. Her singsong, rather nasal voice reeled off her narrative with no show of emotion. But if Sylvie knew how to see, Annette knew how to hear; and when the girl had finished, Annette, raising her eyes, asked her:

"You loved him very much?"

The eyes of the two sisters exchanged a caress. But this lasted for a moment only. Already a jealous shadow had clouded Annette's expression, and she continued:

"He loved you very much."

She sincerely wished to please Sylvie, but she could not help a shade of spite creeping into her voice. Sylvie thought that she could sense a patronising tone. Immediately her paws showed their little claws, and she said spiritedly:

"Oh! yes, he loved me tremendously!"

She made a little pause; then, with a complacent air, let fly:

"And he was very fond of you, too. He often told me so."

Annette's passionate hands, her large nervous hands, trembled and clasped each other. Sylvie watched them. With contracted throat, Annette asked:

"He spoke to you of me, often?"

"Often," repeated the innocent Sylvie.

There was no assurance that she spoke the truth; but Annette, who had scant skill in hiding her own thoughts, did not suspect the words of others, and those of Sylvie touched her heart. . . . So, her father spoke of her to Sylvie, they talked about her together! And she, to the very last day, had known nothing; he had seemed to confide in her, and he had duped her; he had kept her out of things, she had not even known of her sister's existence! Such inequality, such injustice overwhelmed her. She felt that she was beaten. But she did not wish to show it; so she sought a weapon, found it, and said:

"You must have seen very little of him during the last years."

"Yes," conceded Sylvie regretfully, "during the last years that was so. He was sick. They kept him shut up."

There was a hostile silence. Both were smiling, both were champing at the bit: Annette, rigid and strained; Sylvie, her expression as false as a gambler's counter, caressing, mannered. Before going on with the game, they were counting up the points. Annette, a little relieved at having won a (very slight) advantage, and secretly ashamed of her evil thoughts, tried to put the conversation on a more cordial basis. She spoke of the desire she had felt to meet the girl in whom, too, her father lived again,—"a little." But it was in vain; despite herself she made it clear that there was a difference between their shares, and she let it be understood that hers was the privileged one. She told Sylvie about Raoul's last years, and she could not help showing how much more intimate she had been with him. Sylvie profited by a pause in the narrative to furnish Annette, in return, with her own memories of the paternal affection. And each, against her will, envied the other's share; and each tried to make her own seem the bigger. Speaking or listening (not wishing to listen, but hearing just the same) they continued to inspect each other from head to foot. Sylvie complaisantly compared her long legs, slim ankles and small bare feet, lost in their slippers, with Annette's somewhat heavy extremities and awkward ankles. And Annette, studying Sylvie's hands, did not fail to note the cultivated moons of the over-pink nails. It was not merely two young girls who confronted each other; it was two rival households. So, despite the apparent freedom of the conversation, they remained armed with eye and tongue, and observed each other harshly. The fierce sharpness of jealousy made each bluntly penetrate, at first glance, to the very depths of the other; to the faults and hidden vices unsuspected perhaps by their possessor. Sylvie recognized in Annette the demon of pride, inflexibility of principle, despotic violence, which had not yet, however, found occasion to exert itself. Annette recognized in Sylvie a practised sharpness and a smiling falseness. Later, when they loved each other, they would have given much to forget what they had seen. But for the instant their animosity gazed through a magnifying glass. There were seconds when they hated each other. Annette, with a bursting heart, was thinking:

"It isn't right, it isn't right! I should set the example."

Her eyes made a tour of the modest room, taking in the window, the lace curtains, the roof and chimneys of the opposite house under the moonlight, the lilac branch in the broken water jug.

In a cold tone, colder for the fact that she was burning inside, she offered Sylvie her friendship, her assistance. . . . Sylvie, negligently, with a malicious little smile, listened, made no reply. . . . Annette, mortified, ill hiding her piqued pride and incipient passion, rose abruptly. They exchanged a pleasant, commonplace good-bye. And, with sorrow and anger in her heart, Annette went out.

But as she reached the end of the tiled hall, and was already descending the first step of the stairs, Sylvie came running towards her, in her little Turkish slippers, one of which she lost on the way, and from behind she slipped her arms around Annette's neck. Annette turned, crying out with emotion. She hugged Sylvie in a burst of passion; and Sylvie cried out too, but with laughter at the violence of the embrace. Their mouths met ardently. Loving words. Affectionate murmurs. Thanks, promises that they would see each other soon. . . .

They drew apart. Annette, laughing with happiness, found that without realizing it she had descended to the bottom of the staircase. From above she heard a gamin's whistle, as though calling a dog, and Sylvie's voice whispering:

"Annette!"

She raised her head and saw high above her in a patch of light Sylvie's laughing face bending down.

"Catch!"

And Annette received full in her face a rain of drops and the wet lilac that Sylvie had thrown down to her, at the same time throwing kisses with both hands. . . .

Sylvie vanished. Annette, with lifted head, continued to look for her when she was no longer there. And, clasping the branch of wet flowers in her arms, she kissed the lilac.

[V]

Despite the distance, and although certain streets were not very safe at this belated hour, Annette returned home on foot. She could easily have danced. When she finally reached the house, happy and troubled, she did not retire until she had placed the flowers in a vase beside her bed. And then she got up again to take them out and put them in her water jug, as they had been at Sylvie's. In bed again, she kept her lamp lighted, for she did not wish to take leave of this day. But suddenly, three hours later, she awakened in the middle of the night. The flowers were really there; it had not been a dream, she had seen Sylvie. . . . She fell asleep again, upon the breast of that dear image.

The days that followed were filled by the buzzing of bees erecting a new hive. Just as a swarm groups itself around a young queen, so Annette constructed a new future around Sylvie. The old hive was deserted; its queen was indeed dead. Attempting to mask this revolution in the palace, the passionate heart pretended to believe that its love for the father had been transferred to Sylvie, and that it would rediscover him there. . . . But Annette really knew that she was bidding him farewell.

There sounded the imperious voice of new love, which creates and destroys. . . . Memories of the father were thrust, pitilessly, from view. Familiar objects were relegated to the pious shadow of rooms in which they ran no risk of being frequently disturbed. The greatcoat was thrust into the bottom of an old closet. Having put it away, Annette took it out again indecisively, pressed her cheek against it, then suddenly in anger thrust it from her. Illogicality of passion! Which of the two was the traitor? . . .

She was enamoured of the sister she had discovered. She scarcely knew her! But as soon as one loves, such an uncertainty is only an added attraction. The mystery of the unknown is added to the charm of what one thinks one knows. Of the Sylvie she had glimpsed, she wished to remember only what had pleased her. Secretly she admitted that this was not very exact; but when she honestly sought to recall the shadows of the portrait, she heard the little slippers trotting down the hall, and felt Sylvie's bare arms clasped about her neck.

Sylvie was going to come. She had promised. . . . Annette was preparing everything for her reception. Where would she put her? There, in her pretty room. Sylvie would sit here, in her favorite place, before the open window. In imagination Annette saw everything through her sister's eyes, and took delight in showing Sylvie her house, her bibelots, her trees clothed in their softest greenery, and the vista yonder over the flowered hills. In sharing with Sylvie the grace and comforts of her life she enjoyed them with the freshness of new sensations. But the thought occurred to her that Sylvie's eyes might draw comparisons between her own lodging and the Boulogne house. A shadow fell across her joy. This inequality weighed upon her, as though it had been her fault. Couldn't she correct it by asking Sylvie to share with her the advantages that fate had given her? Yes, but this would be to give her still another advantage. And Annette foresaw that she would not gain her consent without a struggle. She remembered the mocking silence with which Sylvie had greeted her first invitations. Her sensitiveness would have to be humored. How could it be done? Annette reviewed four or five plans in her mind. None satisfied her. Ten times she changed the arrangement of the room: after having placed in it her most valuable possessions, with a childish pleasure, she carried them out again and left only the simplest things. There was not a detail—a flower on the landing, the place of a portrait—that she did not argue over. . . . Sylvie must not arrive before everything was in order! But Sylvie was in no hurry, and Annette had time to make and remake, again and again, her little arrangements. She found Sylvie very slow in coming, but she profited by this to revise her plans. Unconscious comedy! She was deluding herself by attributing importance to these trifles. All this bustle of arrangement and rearrangement was only a pretext to distract her attention from another bustle of passionate thoughts which was troubling the habitual order of her rational life.

The pretext wore itself out. This time all was ready. And Sylvie did not come. In imagination Annette had already welcomed her ten times. She was exhausted with waiting. . . . Yet she could not go back to Sylvie's! What if, when she went to see her again, she should read in Sylvie's bored eyes that her sister could get along very well without her! At the very idea Annette's pride bled. No, rather than this humiliation, it would be better never to see her again! Yet . . . She decided hastily, and dressed herself to go in search of the forgetful girl. But she had not finished buttoning her gloves before she lost courage; and, with her legs sinking under her, she sat down on a chair in the vestibule, not knowing what to do. . . .

And just at that moment,—when Annette had sunk down beside the door, with her hat on her head, all ready to go out, yet not able to make up her mind,—just then, Sylvie rang the bell!

Between the sound of the bell and the opening of the door ten seconds did not elapse. Such promptness and the sight of Annette's delighted eyes were enough to tell Sylvie that she was expected. They were already kissing each other, standing on the door-sill, before a word was said. Then Annette impetuously dragged Sylvie through the house, without letting go of her hands, devouring her with her eyes, and laughing foolishly to herself like a happy child. . . .

And nothing happened as she had anticipated. Not one of the prepared phrases of welcome served. She did not seat Sylvie in the chosen place. Turning their backs to the window, they both sat on the divan, side by side, gazing into each other's eyes, speaking without listening; their expressions said:

Annette: "At last! You are really here?"

Sylvie: "You see, I've come. . . ."

But Sylvie, having examined Annette, said: "You were going out?"

Annette shook her head without wishing to explain. Sylvie understood perfectly and, leaning over, she whispered:

"You were coming to my place?"

Annette started and, resting her cheek on her sister's shoulder, she murmured: "Bad girl!"

"Why?" demanded Sylvie, kissing Annette's fair eyebrows with the corner of her mouth.

Annette did not reply. Sylvie knew the answer. She smiled, peeking maliciously at Annette who was now avoiding her glance. The violent girl! Her spirit was broken. A sudden timidity had fallen upon her, like a net. They sat without stirring, the big sister leaning on the shoulder of the little one, who was satisfied at having so promptly established her power. . . .

Then Annette raised her head and, both mistresses of their first emotion, they began to talk like old friends.

No longer were their intentions hostile. On the contrary, each was desirous of surrendering herself to the other. . . . Oh, not completely, however! They knew that there are things in every one which it does not do to show. Even when one loves? Precisely when one loves! But what things, exactly? Each, while unbosoming herself, kept her secrets, sounding out the limits of what the other's love could bear. And more than one confidence that began frankly, oscillated uncertainly in the midst of a phrase, and then ran prettily into a little lie. They did not know each other; in more than one respect they were disconcerting enigmas to each other: two natures, two worlds, strangers in spite of all. For this visit, Sylvie—she had thought about it more than she would have admitted—had made herself as lovely as possible. And her possible was much. Annette was captured by her charm and at the same time embarrassed by certain little artifices of coquetry that made her uncomfortable. Sylvie perceived this, without trying to change in any way; and she was at once attracted and intimidated by this big sister of hers who was so free and so naïve, so ardent and so reserved. (To hear her chatter one would not have suspected the intimidation!) Both were keen and extremely observant, and they missed not a wink nor a thought. They were not yet sure of each other. Suspicious and expansive, they wished to give themselves; yes, but they did not wish to give without receiving. Each was possessed by a devil of petty pride. Annette's was the stronger; but in her the forces of love, too, were stronger, and she betrayed herself. When she gave more than she had wished, it was a defeat that Sylvie relished. So the two negotiators, burning to understand each other, but wisely circumspect, testing each movement, advanced cautiously. . . .

The duel was an unfair one. Very quickly Sylvie became aware of Annette's imperious and imploring love. She saw it more clearly than Annette herself. She tested it; with sheathed claws she played with it, without seeming to do so. Annette felt that she was conquered. It caused her shame and joy.

At Sylvie's request she showed her all her rooms. She would not have done this on her own initiative; she was afraid to gall her sister by displaying the comfort in which she lived, but to her relief Sylvie manifested not the slightest pique. She was perfectly at her ease, coming and going, looking and touching, as though she were at home. It was Annette, in fact, who was disturbed by this perfect poise; and at the same time her affection rejoiced in it. Passing by her sister's bed, Sylvie gave the pillow a friendly little pat. Curiously she examined the toilet table, making an accurate survey of the bottles at a glance; went absentmindedly into the library, enthused over a pair of curtains, criticised an arm-chair, tried another, poked her nose into a half-open cupboard, felt the silk of a dress; and, having made her tour, returned to Annette's bedroom where she sat down in the low armchair near the bed and went on with the conversation. Annette offered her tea, to which Sylvie preferred two fingers of sugared wine. Sucking a biscuit with the end of her tongue, Sylvie looked at Annette who was hesitating, wishing to speak; and she wanted to say to her:

"Out with it then!"

Finally Annette plucked up courage, and with a brusqueness that was caused by her suppressed affection she proposed to Sylvie that she come to live with her. Sylvie smiled, did not speak, swallowed her mouthful, dipped her crumbs and fingers in her wine, smiled again prettily, thanking her sister with eyes and a full mouth, shaking her head as one does when talking to a child. And then she said:

"Darling. . . ."

And she refused.

Annette insisted, pressing her; she tried to compel consent with an imperious violence. It was Sylvie's turn now not to wish to speak! She excused herself with half-words, in a caressing voice, slightly embarrassed and a little malicious as well. . . . (She was very fond of her big sister who was so abrupt, tender, and frank!) She said:

"I can't."

And Annette asked: "But why?"

And Sylvie replied: "I have a sweetheart."

For the space of a second Annette did not understand. Then she understood only too well, and she was dumbfounded. Watching her from the corner of one eye, Sylvie rose, still smiling, and left amid a twittering of little words and kisses.

[VI]

Annette was left to contemplate her destroyed castle. She felt a great, confused pain composed of mingled feelings. Bitter ones there were in plenty, which she would rather not have recognized, but which spasmodically made her throat contract. . . . She who had thought herself free from prejudice; the idea that this pretty sister of hers. . . . Oh! it was too painful! She could have wept over it. . . . Why? It was stupid! Jealousy again? . . . No!

She shrugged her shoulders and stood up. She wished to think no more about it. . . . With long strides she went from room to room, seeking distraction. Then she realized that she was retracting her sister's promenade through the apartment. She could think only of her. Of her and that other . . . Jealous, decidedly? No! No! No! No! . . . She stamped her foot angrily. She would not admit it! . . . But, whether she admitted it or not, the pain was gnawing at her heart. She sought moral explanations; and she found them. It was her purity that suffered. In her complex nature, rich in contradictory instincts that had not yet had occasion to conflict, there was no lack of puritanical forces. Yet it was not religious scruples that disturbed her. Brought up by a sceptical father and a free-thinking mother, outside the pale of any church, she was accustomed to discuss everything. She was not afraid to submit any social prejudice to the spirit of examination. She admitted free love; in theory she admitted it readily. Often in conversation with her father or with fellow students she had upheld it, and in this the juvenile desire to appear "advanced" had played an unimportant part; she sincerely thought that freedom in love was legitimate, natural, and even right. She had never thought of blaming the pretty girls of Paris who lived as they pleased; she regarded them sympathetically, certainly with more sympathy than the women of her middle-class world. . . . Well then, what was it that hurt her now? Sylvie was exercising her right. . . . Her right? No, not her right! Others, but not she! One is lenient with those one does not hold so high. For her sister as for herself Annette had, justly or not—yes, justly!—very strict standards. Love for one person only seemed to her an aristocracy of the heart. Sylvie had fallen. Annette blamed her for it! "One love only? Love for you! . . . Jealous girl, you are lying to yourself! . . ." But the more jealous she was of Sylvie, the more she loved her; and the more irritated she became with her, the more she loved her. One can be so greatly irritated only by those one loves!

Her little sisters charm was calmly working. It was useless to be annoyed, to wish that she were different. Little by little, Annette became conscious of another feeling: curiosity. Despite herself, her mind was trying to imagine Sylvie's mode of life. She thought about it entirely too much. She ended by putting herself in Sylvie's place; and she was rather confused to admit that she did not find it too bad. The scorn of herself, the indignant revolt that this produced, made her the more severe towards Sylvie. She continued to sulk, and forbade herself to visit her sister again.

Sylvie was not at all disturbed. That Annette gave no sign of life did not in any way trouble her. She had judged her big sister; she knew that Annette would come back. The period of waiting did not weigh upon her; she had enough to occupy her heart. First of all, her sweetheart, who occupied, nevertheless, only a corner of it, and that not for long. And there were so many other things! She loved Annette. But, after all, she had lived without her for almost twenty years. She could wait a few weeks more. . . . She imagined what was going on in her sister's mind. She found a certain amusement in this, mixed with a residue of hostility. Two rival races; two classes. When she had been at Annette's, Sylvie had compared their lives and conditions, although she had not appeared to do so. She was thinking:

"All the same, you see, we have our little advantages. I have what you haven't. . . . You thought that you could hold me, and you can't. Yes, go ahead, go ahead, pout and purse your lips! I have shocked your conventions. . . . What a blow, my poor Annette!"

And, laughing at the discomfiture which she imagined she read in Annette's face, she pressed her hand to her lips and threw a kiss. But, even while she told herself that Annette was suffering and that it was a bitter close for her to swallow, she was not offended. And, as one does when a child balks before a full spoon, she whispered, slyly and cajolingly:

"Come on, my little one! Open your mouth! There you are!"

It was not merely a question of shocked conventions. Sylvie knew perfectly well that she had wounded Annette in another feeling much less easily confessed. And the little brigand was delighted at the thought, for it made her feel that she was her sister's mistress; she would make the most of it. . . . "Poor Annette! Can you fight against yourself!" Sylvie was sure, absolutely sure, that she would "have" her. Mocking, yet at the same time touched, she whispered to her in imagination.

"Go on! I won't take advantage of it. . . ."

She wouldn't take advantage of it? . . .

And why not? It's amusing to take advantages. After all, life is war. To the victor are the spoils. If the vanquished consents, it's because it is to his advantage!

"Pshaw! We shall see!"

[VII]

One Monday morning Sylvie was doing some errands, when she caught sight of Annette, a little in front of her and walking in the same direction, on the Rue de Sèvres. She amused herself by following her for a time, so that she might observe her. Annette was walking with long strides, as was her habit. Sylvie, whose steps were short, quick, supple, dancing, laughed at her boyish, athletic pace; but she appreciated the beautiful harmony of her vigorous body. Head held straight, looking neither to right nor left, Annette was absorbed. Sylvie caught up with her and continued to walk beside her on the sidewalk without Annette's noticing her. Imitating her gait, and peeking from the corner of one eye at her big sister's cheek, which seemed paled by a melancholy shadow, Sylvie moved her lips, without turning her head, and said in a low voice:

"Annette. . . ."

It was impossible to hear in the noise of the street. Sylvie barely heard herself. Yet Annette heard. Or was it that she was conscious of this mocking "double" that had for some moments been silently escorting her? Suddenly she saw beside her the amused profile, the lips that moved comically without speaking, the little laughing eye with its sidewise glance. . . . Then she stopped, with one of those movements of impetuous joy that had already surprised and charmed Sylvie on one occasion. Abruptly she held out her arms. Her whole being quivered. Sylvie thought:

"She is going to spring. . . ."

For an instant only. Already she had recovered herself; and, almost coldly, she said:

"Good-morning, Sylvie."

But her cheeks were full of color, and her stiffness could not withstand the burst of laughter from the younger girl, who was delighted with her trick. Annette laughed with her:

"Oh! You've caught me!"

Sylvie took her arm, and they walked on, considerately suiting their steps to each other.

"Were you there long?" asked Annette.

"Oh! about a half-hour," Sylvie affirmed unhesitatingly.

"No?" exclaimed the credulous Annette.

"I followed your movements. I saw everything. Everything. You talked as you walked."

"It's not true, it's not true," protested Annette. "What a little liar! . . ."

Their two arms tightened. They began to chatter about the errands they had just done. They were perfectly happy. In the midst of an impassioned account of a White Sale at the Bon Marché, where one had been and where the other was going,—in the uproar of a street that they were crossing, slipping between the vehicles with the sure instinct of two little Parisiennes, Sylvie murmured in Annette's ear:

"You haven't kissed me!"

Annette's quick movement nearly crushed her. As they approached the sidewalk, still walking, their lips met. . . . Hugging each other closer, they were walking now along a quieter street, that led . . . Where did it lead? . . .

"Where are we going?"

They stopped, amused to find that in the midst of their chattering they had lost their way. Sylvie, clutching Annette, said:

"Let's lunch together."

Annette demurred,—(the unexpected charmed her, but embarrassed her a little too: she was methodical),—mentioning her old aunt, who was waiting for her. But Sylvie was not bothered by these trifling details: she had got hold of Annette, and she wasn't going to let her go. She made her telephone her aunt from a public station, and led her to a creamery which she knew. For the two young girls, and particularly for Annette, it was an outing, this little luncheon to which Sylvie insisted on treating her more fortunate sister. (Annette understood why.) Annette found everything exquisite. She went into ecstasies over the bread, over the well done cutlet. And, last of all, there were strawberries in cream on which they regaled themselves, licking them with their tongues.

But their tongues were even more occupied in talking than in eating. They spoke, however, of only insignificant things, drinking each other in, their eyes, their voices, and their radiance. Instinct has its roads, the shortest and the best. The time had not come to touch on essential subjects. They circled around, circled joyously, like those buzzing wasps that turn ten times around a plate before alighting. They did not alight. . . .

Sylvie stood up, and said: "Now it's time to go to work."

Annette assumed the dashed expression of a child abruptly robbed of its dessert, and exclaimed: "It has been so nice! I haven't had enough."

"Nor I," replied Sylvie, laughing. "When shall we do it again?"

"The sooner and the longer the better. . . . This ended too soon."

"This evening then. Meet me at the door of the shop at about six."

Annette was disconcerted.

"But shall we be alone?"

She was disturbed at the idea that she might meet "the other."

Sylvie read her meaning.

"Yes, yes, we shall be alone," she said indulgently, with an ironic emphasis. She calmly explained that her friend had gone to spend two or three days in the country with his family. Annette blushed when she saw that Sylvie had guessed; she did not remember that she had vowed, morning and evening, to give evidence of her moral disapprobation. So far as morality went, she now saw only one thing: "This evening he will not be there."

What happiness! They could spend the whole evening together.

She spoke her thought, clapping her hands. Sylvie balanced on one foot as though she were going to dance, grinned with pleasure, and said: "Everybody's happy." Then, as a man had just come into the shop, she assumed a genteel air, said, "Good-bye, my dear," and was off like a shot.

They met again, some hours later, at the exit of the frivolous swarm. Babbling, peering, trotting along, completing their hair-dressing before a pocket-mirror or before a stray looking-glass, the little seamstresses turned around as they passed and outstared Annette with their tired, sharp, curious eyes; then, ten steps further on, trotting, peering, babbling, they turned about to look at Sylvie who was kissing Annette. And Annette was pained to see that Sylvie had talked.

She took her sister to dine at Boulogne. Sylvie had invited herself. To spare the aunt, who would have exclaimed, "Oh!" and "Ah!" it was arranged on the way that Sylvie should be introduced as a friend. But this didn't prevent her, at the end of dinner, when the old lady was retiring to her own room, conquered by the charms of the little schemer, from calling her "Aunt" as though in familiar playfulness. . . .

Alone, in the great garden, by the light of a summer night. Tenderly intertwined, they walked with little steps, drinking in the fragrance of the weary flowers, exhaled at the close of a fine day. Like the flowers, their souls exhaled their secrets. This time Sylvie responded to Annette's questions, hiding little. She told the story of her life from infancy; and, first of all, her memories of her father. They spoke of him now without embarrassment, and with no mutual envy; he belonged to them both, and they judged him with an indulgent, ironic smile, as a big, amusing, charming fellow, not very substantial, not very well-behaved. . . . (All men are the same!) They bore him no ill-will. . . .

"You see, Annette, if he had been well-behaved, I wouldn't be here. . . ."

Annette pressed her hand.

"Aie! Don't squeeze so hard!"

After that Sylvie spoke of the florist shop, where as a child she had sat under the counter with the fallen flowers and woven her first dreams,—of her early experiences of Paris life, listening to the talk of her mother and the customers; then, when Delphine died (Sylvie had been thirteen), of her apprenticeship to a dressmaker, who had been her mother's friend and who had taken her in; then, after a year and the death of her employer who had been worn out by work (one wears out quickly in Paris!), of her various avatars. Harsh notations, bitter experiences, always gaily told, seen with drollery. In passing she painted types and characters, pricking with a needle on the weft of her narrative, a trait, a witticism, a word, or a face. She did not tell all; she had experimented with life a little more than she admitted, perhaps more than she cared to remember. She caught herself up short at the chapter on her friend,—of her last friend (if there had been other chapters, she kept them to herself.) A medical student, met at a ball in the quartier. (She would willingly go without dinner, to dance!) Not very handsome, but nice; big and brown, with laughing eyes that wrinkled at the corners; turned up nostrils, the nose of a good dog; amusing, affectionate. She described him with no trimmings, but with complaisance, praising his good qualities, as well as poking a little fun at him, satisfied with her choice. She interrupted herself to laugh at certain memories which she recounted, and at others which she did not. Annette, all ears, troubled and interested, was silent save for a few embarrassed words that she slipped in here and there. Sylvie held her hand, and with her other free hand she caressed the ends of Annette's fingers, one by one, while she spoke, as though she were plucking a garland. Perceiving her sister's embarrassment, she loved her for it and was amused by it.

The two young girls were seated on a bench beneath the trees, and they could no longer see each other in the darkness that had fallen. Sylvie, little devil, profited by this to describe scenes that were a trifle indecorous and decidedly amorous, so that she might completely intimidate her big sister. Annette sensed her malice, and did not know whether she should smile or censure; she would have liked to censure, but her little sister was so pretty! There was so much laughter in her voice, her joy seemed so wholesome! Annette scarcely breathed, trying to hide the tumult into which these amorous stories threw her. Sylvie, who could feel beneath her fingers the other's emotions, paused to enjoy the situation and to concoct some new deviltry: leaning towards Annette, she asked her frankly, in a lowered voice, if she too had a sweetheart. Annette started—she had not expected this—and blushed. Sylvie's piercing eyes sought to see her features in the protective gloom, and, failing this, she ran her fingers over Annette's cheek. . . .

"It's on fire," she said, laughing.

Annette laughed awkwardly, and blushed more furiously. Sylvie flung herself on her neck.

"My dear little stupid, what a darling you are! No, you are priceless! Don't be hurt! I'm mistaken. I love you devotedly. Love your Sylvie a little. She's not much good, but such as she is she's yours. Annette, my ducky! Hold out your lips; I love you!"

Passionately Annette clasped her in her arms, taking her breath away. Sylvie, disengaging herself, observed in the tone of a connoisseur:

"You know how to kiss all right. Who taught you?"

Annette rudely shut the girl's mouth with her hand.

"Don't be always joking!"

Sylvie kissed her palm.

"Forgive me, I won't do it any more."

And, with her cheek resting on her sister's arm, Sylvie remained discreetly silent, listening, watching against the obscure transparence of a patch of sky, hollowed out of the semi-darkness by the branches of the trees, Annette's face which was bent toward her as she spoke in a low voice.

Annette was opening her heart. In her turn she was telling of the happy plenitude of her solitary youth, that dawn of a little Diana, passionate but untroubled, who took joy in what she desired no less than in what she possessed, for between the one and the other there was for her only the distance between to-day and to-morrow. And she was so sure of the morrow that she tasted in advance the perfume of jasmine on the trellis, without hastening to gather it.

She described the calm egotism of those years, empty of events but rich in the sweetness of dreams. She told of the intimacy, the absorbing affection, that bound her to her father. And, in telling about herself, she had the singular experience of discovering herself; for, until this moment, she had never had occasion to analyse her past. She was, momentarily, frightened by it. She halted in her narrative; now she had difficulty in expressing herself, now she expressed herself with a troubled, pictorial ardor. Sylvie did not always understand and was amused, but she listened less than she observed the expression of face, voice and body.

Annette now confessed the jealous suffering she had felt at discovery of the second family that her father had hidden from her, and the turmoil into which she had been thrown by the existence of a rival, a sister. With her burning frankness, she dissimulated nothing that had made her blush; her passion reawakened as she evoked it. She said, "I hated you! . . ." in so fierce a tone that she stopped, checked by the sound of her own voice. Sylvie, much less stirred but deeply interested, felt Annette's hand trembling against her cheek, and thought:

"There is fire, underneath there!"

Annette had picked up the thread of the confession that were costing her so dear. And Sylvie was saying to herself:

"How funny she is to tell me all this!"

But she felt growing within her a respect for her strange, big sister; it was mocking, certainly, but infinitely tender, and it made her rub her cheek cajolingly against the sisterly palm. . . .

Annette had come to the point in her narrative at which the attraction of her unknown sister had taken possession of her, despite her resistance, the point at which she had seen Sylvie for the first time. But here frankness could not conquer the emotion of her heart. She tried to go on, stopped, gave it up, and said:

"I can't. . . ."

There was silence. Sylvie was smiling. She stood up, put her face close to her sister's, and, pinching her chin, she whispered very low:

"You are a great lover."

"I!" protested Annette, thoroughly confused.

Sylvie had risen from the bench, and, standing in front of her sister, she pressed Annette's head against her body and said:

"Poor . . . poor Annette! . . ."

[VIII]

After this, the two sisters saw each other constantly. Not a week went by without their getting together. Sylvie would come to Boulogne in the evening to surprise Annette. More rarely Annette went to Sylvie's. By a tacit agreement they so arranged things that Annette should not meet the friend. They adopted a regular day for lunching together at the creamery, and played at making rendezvous here and there in Paris. They took an equal pleasure in being together. It became a necessity. The hours dragged on the days when they did not see each other; the old aunt could not succeed in breaking Annette's silence, and Sylvie was a sullen puzzle to her sweetheart, who was in no way to blame. The one thing that made the waiting bearable was the thought of all that they would have to say to each other when they met again. But this consolation did not always suffice, and never was Annette happier than on one evening when Sylvie rang her bell, after ten o'clock, saying that she could not wait until the morrow to kiss her. Annette was eager to have her stay with, her; but the little one, who had sworn that she had only five minutes to stay, had gone off on the run, like a shot, without a word, after an hour of prattling.

Annette would have liked Sylvie to enjoy the benefit of her house and her worldly goods. But Sylvie had a brusque way of avoiding all temptations; she had got it into her head—her obstinate little head—that she would accept no monetary loan. On the other hand, she made no fuss about accepting a toilet article, or even "borrowing" it (what she borrowed she forgot to return). It even happened that once or twice she snitched . . . oh! nothing important! . . . And, of course, she would never have touched a bit of money. Money, that's sacred! But a little knickknack, a valueless ornament: she couldn't resist it. Annette had noticed this trick of the little gazza ladra, and she was embarrassed by it. Why didn't Sylvie ask her? She would have been so happy to give! She tried not to see. But the sisters found their greatest pleasure in exchanging a blouse, a corset cover, underwear: Annette's love fed on this. Sylvie was an expert in the art of fixing her sister's dresses, and her taste modified Annette's more sober taste. The effect was not always very happy, for Annette in her excess of enthusiasm would sometimes exaggerate the imitation beyond what suited her individual style, and Sylvie, amused, would have to restrain her zeal. Much more cautious, she knew how, without admitting it, to profit by what she learned from Annette's sober distinction,—certain shades of speech, gesture and manner; but her copy was so cunning that one would have thought that her model had borrowed from her.

Yet, despite their intimacy, Annette succeeded in becoming familiar with only a part of her sister's life. Sylvie enjoyed her independence, and she liked to make it felt. At bottom she had never completely disarmed herself of her class hostility; Annette saw clearly that she was determined to have no one run her affairs or enter into her life save when she pleased. Besides, Sylvie's self-love had not failed to observe that her sister did not approve of everything about her. Notably her love affair. Although Annette tried to accept it, she did not know how to dissimulate the embarrassment that this subject caused her. Either she fled from it, or, when she was compelled to speak of it, with the sincere desire of pleasing Sylvie, there was a forced note in her tone that Sylvie detected; and she, with a word, would change the subject. This made Annette sad. With all her heart she wanted Sylvie to be happy, happy in her own way. And she did not wish to show that this way was not the one she would have preferred. But she did show it, indubitably. When one's feelings are strong, one is not very adroit. Sylvie was hurt by this, and she took revenge in silence. It was only by chance that Annette learned, several weeks after their occurrence, of certain important events in her young sister's life.

As a matter of fact it was impossible to make Sylvie acknowledge their importance; and, indeed, her elastic temperament may have thrown them off easily, but it was possible, too, that her pride made her pretend that this was so more than was really the case. It was incidentally that Annette learned that "for some time" (impossible to be precise: it was "ancient history") the friend had not been on the scene, the liaison had been broken. Sylvie did not seem at all affected by this; Annette was much more so, but it was not with regret. Awkwardly she tried to find out what had happened. Sylvie shrugged her shoulders, laughed and said:

"Nothing happened. It's happened, that's all."

Annette should have rejoiced, but these words of her sister hurt her. . . . What a strange feeling! How wrong she was! . . . Oh! that word "happen" . . . in the world of the heart! And she could laugh as she said it! . . .

But this great news (it was great news for Annette) was followed shortly by another discovery. One day when Annette announced her intention of coming to meet her sister when the shop let out, Sylvie remarked calmly:

"No, no, I'm not there any more. . . ."

"What?" exclaimed Annette in astonishment. "Since when?"

"Oh, quite a while. . . ."

(Still the same trick of avoiding an exact accounting! It might as well have been last evening as last year!)

"What happened?"

"The same riling that happens every year (just as in Malbrough . . . "sà Paques ou à la Trinité . . ."): The dead season comes immediately after the Grand-Prix. The employers all back the wrong horse, so as to have a generous excuse for giving us the gate."

"But where are you then?"

"Oh, I'm here and there. I run about and do a little bit of everything."

Annette was in consternation.

"Then you haven't any job, and you didn't tell me!"

With a little air of superiority, Sylvie explained (at heart not at all displeased by the emotion she had produced) that she slapped together cheap costumes for others to finish, hemmed little dresses, and sewed up men's trousers. And she made a great joke of it all in the telling. But Annette did not laugh. Pressing her inquiry further, she found that her sister was at her wits' end to find work and that she sometimes accepted tasks that were overtiring and disheartening. Now she understood why Sylvie had seemed pale "for some time"; why she had not come to see her for a number of days, offering feeble excuses and absurd lies, in order, no doubt, to spend a part of the night wearing out her fingers and her eyes in sewing. Sylvie, in her joking tone of affected indifference, continued to recount her little misadventures. But she saw that her sister's lips were trembling with anger. And, abruptly, Annette burst out:

"No! It's shameful! I can't, I simply can't bear it! What! you say you love me, and you yourself wanted us to be friends, you pretend to be one, and then you hide from me the most serious things that concern you! . . ."

Sylvie's curled lip said, "Pshaw! What of it! . . ." But Annette did not let her speak; the torrent was loosed.

"I had confidence in you, I thought that you would tell me about your trials and troubles as I tell you about mine, that we would share everything. And then you push me to one side as though I were a stranger; I know nothing, nothing! Except by chance, I should never have learned that you were in trouble, that you are hunting a job, that you are ruining your health; and you would take on any sort of work rather than tell me about it, when you know that it would be a joy for me to help you. . . . It's wrong, wrong! You have hurt me. It's a lack of frankness, a lack of friendship! But I won't stand it any longer! No! . . . To begin with you are coming to live with me, and you are going to stay here until the dead season is over. . . ."

Sylvie shook her head.

"You are coming, don't say no! Now listen to me, Sylvie; I won't forgive if you don't. If you say no, I will never see you again, in all my life. . . ."

Without taking the trouble to excuse herself or to explain, Sylvie, smiling and obstinate, answered:

"No, my dear, no."

She was quite pleased at Annette's agitation. Her big sister, who had tried to defeat her, was now no longer mistress of herself, she was almost in tears. Sylvie: was thinking: "How much prettier she is when she is animated!"

Her face purple with anger, Annette kept repeating, beseeching imperiously:

"Stay! . . . You will stay. . . . I want you to. . . . It's agreed? . . . You are going to stay? . . . You're staying? . . . Answer me! . . . It's yes? . . ."

And with the same exasperating smile, the little donkey replied:

"It's no, dearest."

Annette turned away from her, violently.

"Then, it's all over."

And turning her back, she went to the window, where she seemed oblivious to Sylvie's presence. The younger girl waited for a moment, then she got up and said in a wheedling voice:

"So long, Annette."

Annette did not turn around.

"Farewell," she replied.

Her hands were clenched. If she had moved, Heaven knows what would have happened! She would have wept, cried out. . . . She did not stir, haughty and icy. Sylvie, somewhat embarrassed, and not a little disturbed, but amused in spite of everything, took her departure; once behind the door, she thumbed her nose.

She was not very proud—but a little proud, just the same—of her fine resistance. No more was Annette proud of her rage. In consternation she told herself now that she had burned her bridges: instead of conquering Sylvie by tact and patience, she had practically driven her away. Sylvie would never come back, that was a certainty. Annette, in her dilemma, had closed the door in her sister's face. And she had forbidden herself to reopen it to her. After all her declarations, she could not go after Sylvie! It would be a confession of defeat. Her pride wouldn't permit it; no more would her sense of justice. For Sylvie had behaved badly. . . . No, no, she would not go! . . .

She put on her hat and went straight to Sylvie's.

Sylvie had returned home. Thoughtfully she was examining the perplexing situation. She found it stupid, but she saw no way out; for she did not dream of bending to Annette's will, and no more could she believe that Annette would yield. At bottom she did not think the Duckling was wrong. But she did not wish to give in. Sylvie was not insensible to the blessings of fortune. Without its being apparent, Annette's wealth had awakened in her quite a little temptation and envy. (One can't help it, even when one is not—almost not—envious! When one has a young body, filled with fine little desires, can one help thinking what one would do with wealth, and how much better one would know how to enjoy it than the stupid people who have had it thrust into their mouths, all nicely cooked! . . . ) She did not admit it to herself, but she begrudged Annette her fortune, a little. Yet, if it was any fault of hers, Annette was trying to win forgiveness for it. But the point was that Sylvie would not pardon her. Oh! no one confesses these things to himself. Every one cherishes in his breast, well hidden, five or six little monsters. One does not boast of them, one seems not to see them; but one is in no hurry at all to get rid of them. . . . A more easily confessed feeling was that Sylvie, tempted by gifts that were denied her, liked to enjoy the luxury of appearing to disdain them. But, as a matter of fact, this luxury was devoid of charm; and it proved of scant service. No, it was decidedly true that Sylvie took no very keen pleasure in her victory. There was nothing to strut about; if she had won, it was at her own cost. What made this conclusion the more painful was that her situation was, in reality, decidedly unpleasant; and Sylvie was having a deal of difficulty in extricating herself from the scrape. The number of girls out of work was considerable, and naturally the employers took advantage of the situation. Nor was her health so splendid. The crushing heat of a torrid July, late hours, poor food, and bad drinking water had brought on an attack of enteritis which had left her in a weakened condition. Under the gridiron of her roof that was roasted by the sun, with blinds closed, Sylvie, half undressed, with burning skin, seeking some cool thing on which to lay her hands, was thinking how comfortable it would be in the Boulogne house; and as she was abundantly endowed with irony, in default of other gifts, she was making fun of her own stupidity. She had done well! . . . And to think that she and Annette were in accord, at bottom! Now they were at logger-heads. Good Heavens! how stupid they were! Neither one would give in! . . .

And being perfectly sure that she would not yield, that she would be stupid to the last, she was smiling, curling her pale lips, when she heard Annette's impetuous steps in the hall. She recognized them immediately, and bounded to her feet.

"Annette was coming back! . . . The darling girl! . . ."

She hadn't waited for her. . . . Annette was certainly "the best ever! . . ."

Annette was already in the room. Flushed with excitement and with the heat of her journey, she had no idea what she was going to do; but the moment she entered she knew immediately. Suffocated by the furnace-like atmosphere which pervaded the half-darkened room, she was again seized by a passionate anger. She marched up to Sylvie, who flung herself on her neck; she seized the girl's damp shoulders in impatient hands, and, without responding to her kisses, she said in an exasperated voice:

"I'm taking you away. . . . Get dressed! And don't argue!"

Sylvie argued just the same, in order not to lose the habit. She made a protesting face. But she surrendered herself. Annette imperiously dressed her, put on her shoes, buttoned her blouse, abruptly clapped her hat on her head, shoved her about like a parcel. Sylvie kept saying, "No, no, no," uttering indignant little cries for form's sake; but she was delighted at being bullied. When Annette had finished, Sylvie seized both her hands and kissed them, leaving the mark of her teeth upon them; then, laughing happily, she said:

"There's nothing else to do. . . . Madame Tempest! I surrender. . . . Carry me off!"

Annette carried her off. She had taken the girl's arm in her strong hands, that gripped like a vise. They got into a taxi. When they arrived, Sylvie said to Annette:

"Now I can tell you: well . . . I was dying to come."

"Why were you so bad?" demanded Annette, grumbling and happy.

Sylvie took Annette's hand, and with the curved index finger she tapped her own round little forehead.

"Yes, there's mischief in there!" exclaimed Annette.

"Just like yours," said Sylvie, showing her their two obstinate foreheads in the mirror. They were smiling at each other.

"And," added Sylvie, "we know whom that comes from."

[IX]

Sylvie's room had been awaiting her for a long time. Even before knowing of Sylvie's existence, Annette had kept the cage ready for the friend who would come. The friend had not come; barely had her shadow been glimpsed, on two or three occasions. Annette's personality, which was sufficiently individual, her manners, alternately chilly and ardent, the impetuous character of the outbursts that overcame a reserved nature; and a certain quality that was strange, exigent and imperious, which, without her suspecting it, showed in flashes, even when she was permeated by the desire to give herself with a passionate humility,—all these things frightened away the young girls of her own age, who without doubt esteemed her and appreciated her essence (so to speak), but prudently and from a distance. Sylvie was the first to take possession of the friendly cage. One may be certain that she did not worry about it, and that it would not disturb her to leave it when the day came that she so pleased. She was not much intimidated by Annette. She did not even feel any surprise at the room in which she was installed. On her first visit, from certain little marks of ingenious affection, and from Annette's awkward confusion in showing it to her, she had guessed that it must be meant for her.

Now that she admitted her defeat—to her own gain—she no longer offered the least resistance. Still languid from her attack of enteritis, the little convalescent abandoned herself to the coddling with which her sister surrounded her. The doctor who was called in had found her anemic, and had recommended a change of air, a visit to the mountains. But neither of the girls was in a hurry to leave the common nest; and, cajolers that they were, they knew how to make the doctor say that, after all, Boulogne was well enough, and even, in a sense, that it was better for Sylvie first to regain her strength by a complete rest, before seeking the tonic of keen mountain air.

So Sylvie could indulge herself, and idle in bed. It was so long since she had been able to do that! It was delicious to sleep her fill, to make up for all the sleeps that she had lost, and—most delicious of all—to rest without sleeping, her limbs stretched out between the fine, soft sheets, her body experiencing the ultimate in drowsiness and happiness, while she searched with her foot for cool corners in the bed. And to dream, to dream! . . . Oh! they didn't go far, those dreams! Like a fly on the ceiling, they turned round and round. They did not even come to the end of a phrase. Twenty times, with sticky tongue, they repeated a story, a project, a memory of the shop, of love, or of a hat. In the midst of it they jumped head first again into the pool of sleep. . . .

"But see here, Sylvie, see here . . ." (she would protest dreamily), "That's no life. . . . Please get out of it!"

Half opening one eye, she would see her sister leaning over her, and she would make an effort (the words barely came out) to say:

"Annette! Wake me up."

Annette would say, "Little rascal!" and laugh, shaking her. Sylvie would play the baby.

"Oh, dear mamma, what have I done to be so sleepy?"

Annette's great love overflowed in maternal transports. Seated on the bed, it seemed to her that the dear head which she pressed against her breast was that of her daughter. Sylvie surrendered, with little plaintive protests:

"But how shall I ever be able to go back to work, afterwards?"

"You shan't work any more."

"Why, yes, I will, the idea!" Sylvie rebelled.

In an instant she was awake; pulling herself away from her sister, sitting up straight, the tousled girl fixed Annette with a look that defied her.

"So she still thinks that we want to keep her here by force! Get along with you, my girl!" said Annette, laughing. "Go, if your heart tells you to! No one is keeping you."

"If that's the case, I'll stay!" exclaimed the spirit of contradiction. And Sylvie slipped down into the bed again, tired from her effort.

But this indolence lasted for only a few days; and after that, when she was satiated with sleep, there came the time when it was impossible to keep her quiet. She traipsed about all day long, half-dressed: in her sister's slippers that were too big for her bare feet, in her sister's peignor that she tucked up toga fashion, with bare arms and legs, she went from room to room, looking at everything, exploring everything. She had not much notion of "thine." ("Mine" was another matter!) Annette having said to her, "You are at home," she had taken her at her word. She rummaged everywhere. She tried everything. She splashed for hours in the bath room. There was not a corner that she left uninspected. Annette found Sylvie with her nose in her papers, but these had bored her very quickly. And the amazed aunt received the invasion of the little half-dressed figure who ferreted about amongst all the furniture, moved everything around, addressed a few pretty words to their owner (who was following her every movement in fear and trembling) and then left everything in disorder, and the old lady at once scandalized and charmed.

The house was filled with an inexhaustible babble, with a chattering that had neither head nor tail, no end, and no reason to end. In no matter what place, in no matter what costume, perched on the arm of an easy chair, or comb in hand arranging their hair, or abruptly halted upon a step of the stairs, or in bathrobes after the morning tub,—the two friends talked, talked, talked; and, once started, this might last for hours or days. They forgot to go to bed; their aunt protested in vain, coughed, rapped on the ceiling. They tried to put a mute on their voices, to stifle their laughter; but at the end of five minutes . . . Pouf! Sylvie's little hautboys began to shrill, and there sounded the happy or indignant exclamations of Annette, who was always getting into a tangle, and whom the younger girl could easily put up a tree. This time the raps on the ceiling became really annoyed. Then they decided to "hit the hay"; but they still kept it up while they undressed. The two rooms adjoined, the doors were left open, and they were constantly crossing their frontiers, talking in skirts, talking without skirts; and they would have talked all night long, from one bed to the other, had not the sleep of youth come suddenly to put an end to their cluckling. It swooped down upon them in a flash, as a sparrow-hawk upon a chicken. They fell back upon their pillows, with open mouths, in the middle of a phrase. Annette slept like a lump; her sleep was heavy, frequently disturbed, stormy, drenched with dreams; she rumpled the sheets, she talked in her sleep, but she never awakened. Sylvie, a light sleeper with a tiny snore (if you had told her that, she would have cloaked herself in wounded dignity), would awake and listen in amusement to her sister's gibberish; sometimes she would get up and go over to the bed where Annette lay prostrate, with the sheets thrust up in a mountain by her crossed knees; and, bending over in the light of the night-lamp (for Annette could not sleep without a light), Sylvie would fascinatedly watch the dull, heavy but strangely passionate, sometimes tragic face of the sleeper who was drowning in the ocean of her dreams. She no longer recognized her. . . .

"Annette? That? That's my sister? . . ."

She wanted to waken her abruptly and put her arms about her neck.

"Wolf, are you there?"

But she was too sure that the wolf was there to try the experiment. Less pure and more normal than her dangerous elder sister, she played with fire, but she was not burned by it.

They studied each other at length, while they were dressing and undressing, comparing themselves curiously. Annette had fits of primitive modesty that amused Sylvie, who was at once freer and franker. Annette often appeared cold, one would have said almost hostile; she went into tantrums, or she wept without cause. The fine Lyonnaise poise, of which she had formerly been so proud, seemed definitely lost. And the worst of it was—that she did not at all regret it.

Their confidences went further, now. It would not be easy to reproduce them all. It comes quite naturally to young girls who love each other to calmly say audacious things in their conversation, things that in their mouths preserve a semi-innocence, but which would have none were they repeated by another. In these talks the difference of their two natures was clearly shown: the laughing, child-like, perfectly assured unmorality of the one; and the passionate, disquieting, electrically charged seriousness of the other. There were clashes; Annette was exasperated by the greedy levity and wilful bawdiness with which Sylvie discussed amorous subjects. Audacious in her soul, she was reserved in her words; it seemed that she feared to hear what she thought. She had fits of shutting herself up in a double tower, in a fierce dumbness that she herself did not quite understand. Sylvie understood it much better. After she had lived with her for fifteen days, Sylvie knew Annette better than Annette knew herself.

Yet it was not that her mental faculties lifted her above the average of an agreeable Paris working girl. Aside from a practical sense that was very sound and cautious—but from which she never drew the most possible profit, because she almost always preferred to obey her caprices—she did not emerge from her own sphere to any great extent. Certainly everything amused her, but nothing really interested her except fashions. As for everything that had to do with art—pictures, music, books—she never got beyond the most ordinary stage of appreciation, and sometimes she didn't reach that. Annette was often embarrassed by her taste. Sylvie would realize it, and say:

"Ouf! I've put my foot in it again. . . . Well, tell me someone who behaves properly in society! . . ."