VII
THE FEAR OF HAPPINESS
When Nicole reached her room, she found Genevieve up and waiting.
"What are you doing, child?" she cried sharply, to cover her confusion."Why are you here?"
"I--I am waiting," Genevieve stammered, "to see if I could do anythingfor you."
"There is nothing. I am going out now myself."
"What!" cried the child, opening her eyes wide. "You are not going tostay with the poor fellow?"
"There is no need. He is well."
"But I thought--" She stopped, in confusion, and then clumsily beat aretreat to the door. "I'll go now. I--I only _wanted_ to be of service."
Nicole waited only long enough to be sure of Genevieve's departurebefore descending in turn. Her little room was too narrow; it chokedher. She had need of the open span of the sky to think over the newemotions.
After an hour of unprofitable solitude, feeling the need of aconfidence which would lessen the tension of her thoughts, she soughtGoursac, beginning timidly with the question:
"And the Citoyen Barabant, how is he?"
"Why, he is still alive, clamoring for you like a lost child for hismother."
"Goursac, my old friend," she said, taking his arm, "be serious andgentle for once. I am unhappy, and I want to talk with you."
"Ah, you love him," he said bitterly.
"Yes," she said slowly, as though the revelation had just come, "I lovehim."
"Then why do you avoid him?"
"I am afraid."
"Of what?"
"Of loving him too much."
"I don't understand."
She tried to tell him a little of her emotions at the bedside--thewonder and the swift, acute joy of ministering, the longing to tend andown. Goursac, with a few questions, led her on. They were now in theTuileries, a little apart from the quick throng, the swish of skirts,the laughter and the hum. At last he said:
"My little Nicole, listen. Love is not something that comes to us fromthe outside: it is a need within ourselves. We each have our functionsin this world and our needs. At the bottom, what is strongest and bestin woman is the maternal instinct. Listen to me! You fall in love whenthe need within you becomes too insistent. Any one of a hundred men canappeal to you. It is the moment and not the man. You knew the maternalinstinct for the first time when you had in your keeping the CitoyenBarabant. You think that it is he that has awakened you. Not at all;all these emotions have been in you, dormant; it is they, not he, whichenchant you. Voyons--you do not listen--Nicole!"
"That's true," she said, rousing herself from her reverie. Her eyeshad been deep in the bright to and fro of the promenaders, but she sawonly the room under the attic, and felt only the hot head on her achingshoulder.
"After all, you are thinking only of him, and I am a fool," he said."Nothing that I can say will make any difference. You will learn, asothers have learned, on the steps of experience. Out of some curioustwist within you, in some strange way of reasoning you will decide foryourself."
"I suppose so," she said drearily. "But I wanted to talk it out; youare kind to me."
"I," he said calmly--"I adore you."
"Be serious."
"That is serious."
"Truly?"
"You know it."
"Why?" she said meditatively, but half believing him.
"You are young," he answered, looking steadfastly at the charmingprofile. "And to see you is good for the eyes. You are youth, and Ihave not been old long enough to be reconciled to age. But you don'tbelieve me."
"Yes."
"No; at least, you do not understand."
* * * * *
She did not return home until nightfall, and then did not crossBarabant's window-sill, but contented herself with an inquiry as to hiscondition; nor could artifice and entreaty retain her longer. The nextday she did not appear at all.
Barabant, who saw in her absence nothing but coquetry, was furiouswith her, with himself, with all that kept him to his bed. Thelagging, still hours seemed doubly lagging and still with the memoryof the charm which the presence of the girl had brought to the barewalls. Time and time his eyes sought the empty floor where he hadsurprised her asleep; and, conjuring up that delightful picture, heaccused himself in his unreasoning irritation for not having simulatedinsensibility throughout the day.
Why did she thus avoid him? He remembered their first encounter withLouison. Was she jealous of her comrade, or was it simply calculation?That Nicole should think of playing the coquette annoyed himexceedingly. He had yielded to the fascination of this gipsy from themoment she had taken his arm in the gardens of the Palais Royal withthe mischievous "Barabant, you are a lucky fellow," with which she hadopened their comradeship. But this easy, pleasurable interest had beenfanned into a passionate flame at the storming of the Tuileries, where,by her fire, her tempestuous beauty, and her careless laughter, shehad impressed herself imperishably on his imagination; and later thethought of her bearing him home, of her nursing, and of her tendernesshad invaded his heart.
With the rapture of the first unfolding romance he abandoned himselfutterly to the thought of her, while retaining in his deeperconsciousness, as undebatable, that limit of common sense which mustseparate the man of education and promise from a daughter of the people.
The thought was a part of his intuitions rather than hisconsciousness; for in his simplicity he believed himself utterlyunselfish in seeking her, and was at a loss to understand why sheshould have changed.
Neither the afternoon nor the evening brought any sign of Nicole, norduring the next day could he obtain more than one glimpse of her, asshe departed toward the flower-market. Recovered from his exhaustion,he set forth on the following morning, piqued and angry, resolved tofind her and force an explanation.
He searched the Palais Royal and the Tuileries without success, and itwas only after luncheon that, passing down the left bank of the Seine,he found her near the Conciergerie.
She was a little apart from the throng, strolling meditatively by theriver, into whose swift flood her look was plunged. The half-depletedbasket, overrun with flowers, dangled from her arm, while in herfingers she was turning a cockade without purpose. Against the hotAugust foliage and the buildings weltering under the sun there wassomething about her inexpressibly cool and refreshing to the eye.
The meditative abandon of her pose suggested all at once to Barabanta reason for her absence, and with this pleasing thought his angeryielded to the zest of the eager and confident lover.
So serious was her reverie that she was unaware of his approach untilhis greeting startled her.
"Am I so terrible, Nicole," Barabant asked, smiling at her confusion,"that you find it necessary to avoid me?"
She rallied quickly, and simulating indecision, exclaimed:
"Why, it is the Citoyen Barabant!"
Barabant brought his brows together and said, with a return of hisexasperation: "Nicole, why do you avoid me?"
She shook her head.
"I don't avoid you; I do not seek you out."
"Nicole, you are playing with me."
She again shook her head.
Barabant, taking her wrist, repeated the assertion.
"Barabant, I do not play with you," Nicole answered earnestly.
"Then why have you avoided me?"
He waited for her answer, but she said firmly: "I cannot tell you."
"Assuredly she is beginning to love me," thought Barabant, and, wellcontent, did not press the question. They strayed a little from theConciergerie, and leaning over the bank, contemplated the river scenesbelow, following the fortunes of the languid fishermen, the anticsof a kitten that romped over the flat decks herded together, and theglistening backs of boys splashing near the shore.
"Of whom were you thinking so seriously before I came?" Barabant asked,secure in his new confidence. He sought her face, hoping to
surprisesome trace of confusion.
"I was wondering how it would seem to have a mother," Nicole answered.She crumbled a flower and scattered the petals on the wafting stir ofthe air before she turned. "But then we might not agree. Perhaps I amlucky. What do you think?"
"Such reverie for a mother?"
"Oh, there are moments when one has such moods."
"I had hoped you were thinking of me."
"Really?" She lifted her eyebrows slightly. "And why?"
Her composure routed his agreeable theories and plunged him intoperplexities. So, abandoning his confident attitude, he exclaimedvehemently:
"Nicole, what has happened? What is there--a misunderstanding, or what?Surely you will not tell me that it is natural for you to shun me sopersistently. I will be answered!"
"I don't; I don't. I will not have you saying that!" She seized theopportunity of a passing party of muscadins--the dandies of the day--tooffer her cockades. On her return, Barabant said more quietly:
"Listen to me, Nicole. You misunderstand me; I do not upbraid you. Iwant to thank you. I owe you much, and you give me no opportunity totell you of my gratitude. That is what vexes me. Voyons, Nicole, we hadbegun so well!" He leaned closer and said mischievously: "Oh, if I hadknown you would leave, I would have remained unconscious all the day.I've cursed myself ever since."
He laughed, and growing bolder as he perceived she listened withoutdispleasure, he poured into her ear, in one breath daring, in anothershy, a thousand and one of those vague, delightful half-confidenceswhich in the imagination of the lover awaken as naturally as theflowers open to the sun.
Nicole could not but listen. She assembled a bouquet and pressed herface against it to screen her pleasure from his avid scrutiny. Fromtime to time she turned, and looking him full in the face, sought toread there the true value of his words. But almost immediately shewould turn with a wistful smile of unbelief. At length she checked him,saying, with reluctant gentleness:
"Enough, Barabant. Your imagination runs away with you. You do not knowyour own feelings."
Barabant, borne on by the ardor of his emotions, retorted point-blank:
"And you, do you know yours?"
At this sudden challenge, Nicole had a moment of confusion, duringwhich she answered at random:
"I?" But immediately regaining her composure, she added, "Perfectly."
"You evade my question."
"If you begin like that, I warn you I will not listen. Besides, I amneglecting my cockades."
She unslung her basket and again accosted the crowd. Barabant, afterthe first outburst of expostulation, waited moodily, leaning againsta tree, his gaze lost in the current. The moment Nicole was assuredof his abstraction, she hesitated no longer, but slipping through thethrong, quickly gained her liberty among distant streets.
* * * * *
She knew that the evasion was unwise, exposing her to hisjudgment either as a coquette or as fearing to betray her truefeelings--opinions which she did not wish him to entertain. She hadfled, but not by calculation. She had again avoided him, and yet shescarcely understood why. New emotions had awakened in her a commotionthat disturbed her whole theory of life.
Before, with happy tolerance, she had passed along the weary road ofpoverty, shrugging her shoulders at hunger, meeting adversity with asmile, expecting two or three attachments, not deep; delightful whilelasting, sharp and saddening when broken; but, sad or sweet, not to beregarded too seriously,--the lot of life.
She had, therefore, welcomed the coming of Barabant with thepleasurable anticipation of a delightful comradeship. That she couldretain him, or, in all probability, would care to retain him, beyond acertain term never occurred to her. As to the question of marriage, itdid not for a moment enter her head. For her it did not exist.
A sigh drawn from her soul as she stood by his bed had dissipatedall that, and discovered to her immense longings, womanly, motherlynecessities which she had never realized before and which sheimperfectly comprehended now. She perceived him no longer as a comrade,but as the new need of her awakened nature.
She had imagined love as impassioned, headlong, and impetuous, and,in the place of this ideal, she felt only the confident, weak appealof Barabant to her ministering tenderness. The sensation was acute,poignant, disturbing; the happiness that had possessed her then was toobig, too strange; it frightened her. She feared such a transforming,all-consuming love. To give herself utterly thus she felt, in herintuitions, would mean only disaster. So she fled from herself, tryingto stifle that immense emotion to which she had no right,--so fraughtwith peril. So when, through all the rumble of sound and the ceaselessrabble of the boulevards, there returned the silent room under theeaves, and the feverish smile that answered to her soothing touch, sheincessantly cried to herself:
"No, no. I would love him too much. The end would crush me."
Little vagrant of the people, she knew well what that end inevitablymust be.