His journey home was melancholy. He refused to drive, and walked through the soaking fields, in the yellow mist that covered the earth, the trees, the houses, with a shroud. Like the light, life seemed to be blotted out. Everything loomed like a specter. He was like a specter himself.
At home he found angry faces. They were all scandalized at his having passed the night God knows where with Sabine. He shut himself up in his room and applied himself to his work. Sabine returned the next day and shut herself up also. They avoided meeting each other. The weather was still wet and cold: neither of them went out. They saw each other through their closed windows. Sabine was wrapped up by her fire, dreaming. Christophe was buried in his papers. They bowed to each other a little coldly and reservedly and then pretended to be absorbed again. They did not take stock of what they were feeling: they were angry with each other, with themselves, with things generally. The night at the farmhouse had been thrust aside in their memories: they were ashamed of it, and did not know whether they were more ashamed of their folly or of not having yielded to it. It was painful to them to see each other: for that made them remember things from which they wished to escape: and by joint agreement they retired into the depths of their rooms so as utterly to forget each other. But that was impossible, and they suffered keenly under the secret hostility which they felt was between them. Christophe was haunted by the expression of dumb rancor which he had once seen in Sabine’s cold eyes. From such thoughts her suffering was not less: in vain did she struggle against them, and even deny them: she could not rid herself of them. They were augmented by her shame that Christophe should have guessed what was happening within her: and the shame of having offered herself … the shame of having offered herself without having given.
Christophe gladly accepted an opportunity which cropped up to go to Cologne and Düsseldorf for some concerts. He was glad to spend two or three weeks away from home. Preparation for the concerts and the composition of a new work that he wished to play at them took up all his time and he succeeded in forgetting his obstinate memories. They disappeared from Sabine’s mind too, and she fell back into the torpor of her usual life. They came to think of each other with indifference. Had they really loved each other? They doubted it. Christophe was on the point of leaving for Cologne without saying goodbye to Sabine.
On the evening before his departure they were brought together again by some imperceptible influence. It was one of the Sunday afternoons when everybody was at church. Christophe had gone out too to make his final preparations for the journey. Sabine was sitting in her tiny garden warming herself in the last rays of the sun. Christophe came home: he was in a hurry and his first inclination when he saw her was to bow and pass on. But something held him back as he was passing: was it Sabine’s paleness, or some indefinable feeling: remorse, fear, tenderness? … He stopped, turned to Sabine, and, leaning over the fence, he bade her good evening. Without replying she held out her hand. Her smile was all kindness—such kindness as he had never seen in her. Her gesture seemed to say: “Peace between us. …” He took her hand over the fence, bent over it, and kissed it. She made no attempt to withdraw it. He longed to go down on his knees and say, “I love you.” … They looked at each other in silence. But they offered no explanation. After a moment she removed her hand and turned her head. He turned too to hide his emotion. Then they looked at each other again with untroubled eyes. The sun was setting. Subtle shades of color, violet, orange, and mauve, chased across the cold clear sky. She shivered and drew her shawl closer about her shoulders with a movement that he knew well. He asked:
“How are you?”
She made a little grimace, as if the question were not worth answering. They went on looking at each other and were happy. It was as though they had lost, and had just found each other again. …
At last he broke the silence and said:
“I am going away tomorrow.”
There was alarm in Sabine’s eyes.
“Going away?” she said.
He added quickly:
“Oh! only for two or three weeks.”
“Two or three weeks,” she said in dismay.
He explained that he was engaged for the concerts, but that when he came back he would not stir all winter.
“Winter,” she said. “That is a long time off. …”
“Oh! no. It will soon be here.”
She saddened and did not look at him.
“When shall we meet again?” she asked a moment later.
He did not understand the question: he had already answered it.
“As soon as I come back: in a fortnight, or three weeks at most.”
She still looked dismayed. He tried to tease her:
“It won’t be long for you,” he said. “You will sleep.”
“Yes,” said Sabine.
She looked down, she tried to smile: but her eyes trembled.
“Christophe! …” she said suddenly, turning towards him.
There was a note of distress in her voice. She seemed to say:
“Stay! Don’t go! …”
He took her hand, looked at her, did not understand the importance she attached to his fortnight’s absence: but he was only waiting for a word from her to say:
“I will stay. …”
And just as she was going to speak, the front door was opened and Rosa appeared. Sabine withdrew her hand from Christophe’s and went hurriedly into her house. At the door
