Séverine woke early. In spite of her short sleep, she felt fresh and lively, and her first thought was to get up. But she was stopped by a body which lay beside her, blocking her way. Pierre. For the first time since her illness they’d spent the night together. And how well she’d slept—no dreams, not a single confused night-mare.
Was it he who’d protected her? Had she freed herself by giving herself to him?
Still, she had been urged toward Pierre only by a desire to make him forget his unhappiness. Her own enjoyment, as usual, had been simply the pleasure of making him happy. When he’d taken her in his arms, she had wondered if those dark and delicious workings of convalescence would be resolved in some rapture she’d never known. But when his arms released her, Pierre saw his wife’s still virgin eyes. And if Séverine felt a faint brush of disappointment, she forgot it immediately when she saw his haggard features recovering their vigor and tenderness.
Now, in the early light, she was unable to distinguish his face clearly; but to reconstruct its noble lines all she needed was the mass of the head. Pierre was sleeping confidently, like a boy. Séverine was deeply moved. The two years they’d lived together passed through her mind like a rich and cherished flame. How easy Pierre had made them! Always considerate. And how humbly, too, this man, whose pride she knew, had worked to make her happy.
The silence pervaded everything, leaving room only for gratitude and concern.
Have I really been able to repay so much love? she asked herself. Have I tended his happiness well enough? He’s done so much for me and I’ve taken it all for granted, as my due.
Remorse felt sweet. For someone to be so sensitive, there was a kind of virtuous exaltation in recognizing faults she desired to put right. For Séverine knew perfectly well both what she owed Pierre and how much power she had over him. A day ago she’d never have believed that her voice, her arms, could have brought peace so quickly to such a despairing heart.
Now I know, thought Séverine. He depends on me like a child.
She remembered that Pierre sometimes called her as his drug. She didn’t understand the dark shadows connoted by this word, and she didn’t like it, as she was repelled by anything that worked against the norm, against good health. She’d never been curious about her husband’s possible experiences before they’d met. What need had they of anything outside themselves? They had their love, their simplicity.
Séverine thought of Pierre’s shining smile, she remembered his strong, frank hands. She had a moment of fear at the idea that this smile, this strength, were at her mercy.
I could hurt him so much, she thought.
No pride corrupted that anxiety. It was mixed only with the profound integrity of her love. Pierre was all she had in the world, she loved no one else.
This assurance struck her so strongly, it rose from so deep within her, that she smiled at her fleeting fears. Whatever happened, Pierre would never suffer because of her. What a wonderful warmth she felt for that man, breathing beside her like a boy. Since all his joy and sorrow lay in her hands, she would see to it that his days were happy. Till the end of their twin existence. They’d never know a single doubt. Séverine realized she was the guardian of a proud flame but she felt so strong, so pure with love, that the high task seemed simple to her.
Another woman might, at that moment, have been concerned about the dreams which followed her sickness, about the queer relationship that had been established, the night before, with Husson. But Séverine’s principally physical education, her usual good health and happy balance, her natural propensity for untroubled happiness, all discouraged her from introspection. She was concerned only with surface emotions, controlled only the most obvious aspects of herself. Since she imagined she was in full possession of her being, Séverine had no idea of the powers that lay dormant in her, and, as a result, no hold over them at all. Since these secret layers of her personality had so far supported wishes sanctioned by reason, her desires had invariably possessed a strength to which she acceded with a feeling of impatient inevitability.
She could wait no longer to show Pierre the new depths of tenderness in which she moved. She kissed his forehead, a long kiss. Still trapped in that uncertain state between sleep and full consciousness in which the drifting body obeys its instincts, Pierre pressed against Séverine. For several seconds he lay on the warm shores of love, before becoming aware of the woman beside him. Then in a voice redolent of dreams he murmured, “Darling. My beloved love.”
Séverine switched on the low bedside light. She needed to see that total felicity, void of thought, implicit in her husband’s words. Veiled by thick silk the light spread softly through the room. It barely touched Pierre, who didn’t stir; but the elemental mystery of a face belonging to the shadows and bearing only the semblance of life, which Séverine had attempted to surprise, had now fled from his features. Pierre came to.
“How wonderful to find you here again,” he said. “I’ve missed you so much.”
His eyes opened suddenly.
“Of course,” he continued slowly. “Poor little Marco. He was Italian, you know. He used to horse around with me.”
This time Séverine had only to stroke Pierre’s hair to calm him down. Softly he added, “Already I’ve stopped grieving for him. I’m too full of you. There’s not much left over for anyone else.”
“Hush. If everyone were like you, Pierre, life would be a whole lot better. Do you know,” Séverine went on lovingly, “I’ve been thinking about you so much this morning.”
“Have you been awake long? But it’s barely light. Weren’t you feeling well? And there I was sleeping like a log.”
Séverine laughed tenderly.
“Don’t go and reverse our roles now,” she said. “I was just going to tell you how much you mean to me, and ask you how I can make you happier …”
She stopped short, as if she’d struck a false note. There was surprise and a good deal of embarrassment in her husband’s face.
“Please,” he muttered. “Don’t be too kind to me. It’s you who are my child.”
“In any case,” Séverine continued, “I want to take more of an interest in your life. I want to know everything you do, all about your patients, your operations. I don’t help you in a single thing.”
All this roused in Pierre feelings of guilt rather than gratitude. Like all sensitive strong men in love, he imagined that the slightest trouble Séverine took on his behalf was a sort of crime he had committed against her.
“I lost hold of myself last night,” he said, “and now I’ve gone and made you anxious over me. I’m really ashamed. But don’t worry, darling, that’s the last you’ll see of that.”
Séverine felt faintly impatient. Her desire to love was so difficult to put into practice. Every attempt she made seemed to turn back on itself. She wanted to serve Pierre, and instead he constantly put himself at her service.
She wanted to share in his work, his concerns, his reading, his thoughts. But despite her desires, Séverine felt powerless to enter his world: her own upbringing, her own abilities, her very desire, caused her to fail in this activity, never very congenial to her.
With growing confusion and an immense desire to give she murmured, “Then what can I do for you, my darling?”
The tone of her voice made Pierre lean toward her. They looked at each other as if suddenly discovering themselves. And the prayer the young woman read flickering deep in those gray eyes was this:
Ah, Séverine, if only you could stop giving me your body just for my own enjoyment, and enjoy it yourself, lose yourself in such happiness.
His look was so powerful, so heavy with appeal, that Séverine actually felt aroused as never before. What Husson had made her feel the previous day she felt again, but accompanied now with all the joy of love. If Pierre had taken her then, with those hands of his whose strength she knew so well, with those limbs whose muscles had so often played so proudly before her eyes, surely she would have arched beneath the ecstasy he asked of her. But at the very moment he reached for her she saw a gleam of gratitude in his eyes. Once more she let herself be taken, feeling maternal.
Later they lay without moving.
What was Pierre thinking? Was he remembering his mistresses, women he hadn’t loved but in whom he had aroused the almost mortal pleasure of sensuality? Or was he thinking of the injustice that made of this woman who loved him, and for whom he’d have given his life, a body incapable of the passion he desired so savagely, so religiously.
Séverine herself felt only a dull misery. Despite her awareness of total power over Pierre, she had failed to pry open any further a soul that belonged to her. Without wanting to, that soul had refused itself to her, as her own body had refused itself to him. The silence between them was thick with their defeat.
Fortunately, they had a passionate affection for each other that soothed everything. Their essential love was in no way hurt. On the contrary, they felt all the more a need to draw close to each other, to affirm what they knew to be indestructible. Unconsciously, Séverine slipped her hand into her husband’s. He gave it a firm squeeze, innocent of any sensuality, the grasp of some traveling companion, of some life companion. She replied in kind. They felt that their love was above meaningless disharmony.
Sensuality, they seemed to agree, is a passing flame. We share a rarer, surer wealth.
Daylight had now come to dispel the subtle and mysterious struggles of the instincts, those creatures of the dark. Pierre and Séverine looked at each other and smiled. This first light, implacable to all things forced to fade, was kind to their young faces. They emerged from the night, filled with freshness.
“It’s still early,” Séverine said. “You’ve got time before you have to go to the hospital. Come to the Bois with me.”
“It won’t tire you?”
“No, that’s all over now. I’m not sick any more. Hurry up and dress.”
When Pierre had left the room she suddenly realized she’d never told him about Husson.
Well, I won’t, she decided. Why should I give him any unnecessary anxiety?
For the first time in her life she thought it best to conceal something from Pierre; and somehow, she loved him all the more for it.