In the evening I asked Mother Le Gannec about her.
“That’s demoiselle Landudec,” she replied, “a very excellent and well deserving girl, friend Mintié. The old gentleman is her father. … They live in the big château on the Saint Jean road. You know which one I mean. … You have been there several times.”
“How is it that I have never seen them?”
“Ah! Lord! … That’s because the old man is always sick and the girl stays at home to take care of him, the poor thing! Undoubtedly he must have felt better today and she took him out for a walk.”
“Hasn’t she got a mother?”
“No. Her mother has been dead for quite some time.”
“Are they rich?”
“Rich? Not so very! But they help everybody. … If you only went to mass on Sunday you would see the kind young lady.”
That evening I remained to talk with Mother Le Gannec much longer. I saw the kindly lady again several times on the jetty, and on those days the thought of Juliette was less oppressive. I wandered in the neighborhood of the château which looked to me as desolate as the Priory. Grass was sprouting in the courtyard, the lawns were not well kept, the alleys of the park were broken up by the heavy carts of nearby farmers. The grey stone façade, turned green by rain, was as gloomy as the large granite rocks that one saw on the waste land. … The following Sunday I went to mass, and I saw demoiselle Landudec praying among the peasants and fishermen. Kneeling on her prayer stool, her slim body bent like a primitive virgin, her head over a book, she prayed with fervor. Who knows? Perhaps she understood that I was unhappy and mentioned my name in her prayers? And while the priest was chanting his orison in a tremulous voice, while the nave of the church was being filled with the noise of wooden shoes beating against the slabs and with the whisper of lips in prayer, while the incense in the censer rose to the ceiling together with the shrill voices of the children in the choir, while the young lady prayed as Juliette would have done had she prayed at all, I was dreaming. … I was in the park, and the young lady approached, bathed in moonlight. She took my hand, and we walked on the lawns and in the shadow of rustling trees.
“Jean,” she said to me, “you are suffering and I have come to you. I have asked God if I could love you. God permits. I love you!”
“You are too beautiful, too pure, too holy to love me! You must not love me!”
“I love you! Put your arm in mine, rest your head on my shoulder and let us walk together, always!”
“No, no! Is it possible for the lark to love the owl? Is it possible for the dove that flies in heaven to love the toad which hides itself in the mud of stagnant waters?”
“You are not an owl, and you are not a toad, for I have chosen you! The love which God has permitted me to bear blots out all sin and assuages all sorrow. Come with me and I shall give you happiness.”
“No, no! My heart is cankered, and my lips have drunk the poison which kills souls, the poison which damns angels like you; don’t look at me so, for my eyes will defile you and you will be like Juliette! …”
The mass was over, the vision disappeared. There arose a noise of moved chairs and heavy steps in the church, and the children of the choir put out the tapers on the altar. … Still kneeling, the girl was praying. Of her face I could distinguish only a profile lost in the shadow of the white veil. She got up, after making the sign of the cross. I had to move my chair to let her pass. She passed … and I felt a real joy, as though in refusing the love which she offered me in thought I had just now fulfilled a great duty.
She occupied my mind for a week. I resumed my furious walks through the moor, on the strand, and I wished I could conquer my passion. While walking, driven by the wind, carried along by that peculiar exaltation occasioned by rain pelting the sea shore, I imagined all sorts of romantic conversations with demoiselle Landudec and nocturnal adventures which took place in enchanted and lunar places. Like the characters in an opera, we vied with each other in sublime thought, in heroic sacrifices, in wonderful devotion; under the spell of the passionate rhythms and stirring recurrences of the song of the elements, we extended the boundaries of human self-denial. A sobbing orchestra accompanied the anguish of our voices.
“I love you! I love you!”
“No, no! You must not love me!”
She, in a very long white gown, with a bewildered look and outstretched arms … I, gloomy, inexorable, the calves of my legs swelling under the violet silk tight garment, my hair disheveled by the wind.
“I love you! I love you!”
“No! No! You must not love me!”
And the violins emitted inaudible plaints, the wind instruments moaned, while the double basses and the dulcimers rumbled like tempest and peals of thunder.
Oh, the tragicomedy of sorrow!
A curious thing! Demoiselle Landudec and Juliette became one; I no longer separated them, I confused them in my dreams, extravagant and melodramatic. Both were too pure for me.
“No! No! I am a leper, leave me alone!”
They passionately kissed my wounds, spoke of death and cried: “I love you! I love you!”
And vanquished, subdued, redeemed by love I fell at their feet. The old father, dying, spread his arms over us and blessed us, the three of us!
This trance did not last long; I soon found myself on the dune, face to face
