“That would be a queer way of loving.”
“That is not what I asked. Would you?”
“It is not necessary.”
“But if I wished it?”
“You would be wrong.”
“Perhaps. … Would you do it?”
He tried to kiss her. But she thrust him away.
“Would you do it? Yes or no?”
“No, my dear.”
She turned her back on him and was furious.
“You do not love me. You do not know what love is.”
“That is quite possible,” he said good-humoredly. He knew that, like anybody else, he was capable in a moment of passion of committing some folly, perhaps something dishonest, and—who knows?—even more: but he would have thought shame of himself if he had boasted of it in cold blood, and certainly it would be dangerous to confess it to Ada. Some instinct warmed him that the beloved foe was lying in ambush, and taking stock of his smallest remark; he would not give her any weapon against him.
She would return to the charge again, and ask him:
“Do you love me because you love me, or because I love you?”
“Because I love you.”
“Then if I did not love you, you would still love me?”
“Yes.”
“And if I loved someone else you would still love me?”
“Ah! I don’t know about that. … I don’t think so. … In any case you would be the last person to whom I should say so.”
“How would it be changed?”
“Many things would be changed. Myself, perhaps. You, certainly.”
“And if I changed, what would it matter?”
“All the difference in the world. I love you as you are. If you become another creature I can’t promise to love you.”
“You do not love, you do not love! What is the use of all this quibbling? You love or you do not love. If you love me you ought to love me just as I am, whatever I do, always.”
“That would be to love you like an animal.”
“I want to be loved like that.”
“Then you have made a mistake,” said he jokingly. “I am not the sort of man you want. I would like to be, but I cannot. And I will not.”
“You are very proud of your intelligence! You love your intelligence more than you do me.”
“But I love you, you wretch, more than you love yourself. The more beautiful and the more good you are, the more I love you.”
“You are a schoolmaster,” she said with asperity.
“What would you? I love what is beautiful. Anything ugly disgusts me.”
“Even in me?”
“Especially in you.”
She drummed angrily with her foot.
“I will not be judged.”
“Then complain of what I judge you to be, and of what I love in you,” said he tenderly to appease her.
She let him take her in his arms, and deigned to smile, and let him kiss her. But in a moment when he thought she had forgotten she asked uneasily:
“What do you think ugly in me?”
He would not tell her: he replied cowardly:
“I don’t think anything ugly in you.”
She thought for a moment, smiled, and said:
“Just a moment, Christli: you say that you do not like lying?”
“I despise it.”
“You are right,” she said. “I despise it too. I am of a good conscience. I never lie.”
He stared at her: she was sincere. Her unconsciousness disarmed him.
“Then,” she went on, putting her arms about his neck, “why would you be cross with me if I loved someone else and told you so?”
“Don’t tease me.”
“I’m not teasing: I am not saying that I do love someone else: I am saying that I do not. … But if I did love someone later on. …”
“Well, don’t let us think of it.”
“But I want to think of it. … You would not be angry with me? You could not be angry with me?”
“I should not be angry with you. I should leave you. That is all.”
“Leave me? Why? If I still loved you … ?”
“While you loved someone else?”
“Of course. It happens sometimes.”
“Well, it will not happen with us.”
“Why?”
“Because as soon as you love someone else, I shall love you no longer, my dear, never, never again.”
“But just now you said perhaps. … Ah! you see you do not love me!”
“Well then: all the better for you.”
“Because … ?”
“Because if I loved you when you loved someone else it might turn out badly for you, me, and him.”
“Then! … Now you are mad. Then I am condemned to stay with you all my life?”
“Be calm. You are free. You shall leave me when you like. Only it will not be au revoir: it will be goodbye.”
“But if I still love you?”
“When people love, they sacrifice themselves to each other.”
“Well, then … sacrifice yourself!”
He could not help laughing at her egoism: and she laughed too.
“The sacrifice of one only,” he said, “means the love of one only.”
“Not at all. It means the love of both. I shall not love you much longer if you do not sacrifice yourself for me. And think, Christli, how much you will love me, when you have sacrificed yourself, and how happy you will be.”
They laughed and were glad to have a change from the seriousness of the disagreement.
He laughed and looked at her. At heart, as she said, she had no desire to leave Christophe at present: if he irritated her and often bored her she knew the worth of such devotion as his: and she loved no one else. She talked so for fun, partly because she knew he disliked it, partly because she took pleasure in playing with equivocal and unclean thoughts like a child which delights to mess about with dirty water. He knew this. He did not mind. But he was tired of these unwholesome discussions, of the silent struggle against this uncertain and uneasy creature whom he loved, who perhaps loved him: he was tired from the effort that he had to make to deceive himself about her, sometimes tired almost to tears. He would think: “Why, why is she like this? Why are people like this? How second-rate life is!” … At the same time he would smile as he saw her pretty face above him, her blue eyes, her flowerlike
