“That accident recalls the reason I never married.”
She looked at him in astonishment, with the inquisitive gaze of women who wish to know everything, eying him as women do who are no longer young, with intense and malicious curiosity. Then she asked:
“How so?”
“Oh! it is a long story,” he replied; “a rather sad and unpleasant story.
“My old friends were often surprised at the coldness which suddenly sprang up between one of my best friends, whose Christian name was Julien, and myself. They could not understand how two such intimate and inseparable friends as we had been could suddenly become almost strangers to one another. This is why we parted company.
“He and I used to live together at one time. We were never apart, and the friendship that united us seemed so strong that nothing could break it.
“One evening when he came home, he told me that he was going to be married, and it gave me a shock just as if he had robbed me or betrayed me. When a man’s friend marries, all is over between them. The jealous affection of a woman, a suspicious, uneasy, and carnal affection, will not tolerate that sturdy and frank attachment, that attachment of the mind and of the heart, and the mutual confidence which exist between two men.
“However great the love may be that unites them, a man and a woman are always strangers in mind and intellect; they remain belligerents, they belong to different races. There must always be a conqueror and a conquered, a master and a slave; now the one, now the other—they are never equal. They press each other’s hands, hands trembling with amorous passion; but they never press them with a long, strong, loyal pressure, a pressure which seems to open hearts and to lay them bare in a burst of sincere, strong, manly affection. Wise men instead of marrying and bringing into the world, as a consolation for their old age, children who will abandon them, ought to seek a good, staunch friend, and grow old with him in that community of ideas which can exist only between two men.
“Well, my friend Julien married. His wife was pretty, charming, a light, curly-haired, plump, bright little woman, who seemed to worship him. At first I went but rarely to their house, as I was afraid of interfering with their affection, and averse to being in their way. But somehow they attracted me to their house; they were constantly inviting me, and seemed very fond of me. Consequently, by degrees I allowed myself to be allured by the charm of life with them. I often dined with them, and frequently, when I returned home at night, thought that I would do as he had done, and get married, as I found my empty house very dull. They seemed very much in love with one another, and were never apart.
“Well, one evening Julien wrote and asked me to go to dinner, and I went.
“ ‘My dear fellow,’ he said, ‘I must go out directly afterwards on business, and I shall not be back until eleven o’clock, but I shall not be later. Can I depend on you to keep Bertha company?’
“The young woman smiled.
“ ‘It was my idea,’ she said, ‘to send for you.’
“I held out my hand to her.
“ ‘You are as nice as ever,’ I said, and I felt a long, friendly pressure of my fingers, but I paid no attention to it. We sat down to dinner, and at eight o’clock Julien went out.
“As soon as he had gone, a kind of strange embarrassment immediately seemed to come over his wife and me. We had never been alone together yet, and in spite of our daily increasing intimacy, this tête-à-tête placed us in a new position. At first I spoke vaguely of those indifferent matters with which one fills up an embarrassing silence, but she did not reply, and remained opposite to me looking down in an undecided manner, as if thinking over some difficult subject. As I was at a loss for more commonplaces, I remained silent. It is surprising how hard it is at times to find anything to say. And then, again, I felt in the air, in my bones, so to speak, something which is impossible for me to express, that mysterious premonition which tells you beforehand of the secret intentions, be they good or evil, of another person with respect to yourself.
“The painful silence lasted some time, and then Bertha said to me:
“ ‘Will you kindly put a log on the fire, for it is going out.’
“So I opened the box where the wood was kept, which was placed just where yours is, took out the largest log, and put it on the top of the others, which were three-parts burned, and then silence reigned in the room again.
“In a few minutes the log was burning so brightly that it scorched our faces, and the young woman raised her eyes to me—eyes that had a strange look to me.
“ ‘It is too hot now,’ she said; ‘let us go and sit on the sofa over there.’
“So we went and sat on the sofa, and then she said suddenly, looking me full in the face:
“ ‘What should you do if a woman were to tell you that she was in love with you?’
“ ‘Upon my word,’ I replied, very much at a loss for an answer, ‘I cannot imagine such a case; but it would very much depend upon the woman.’
“She gave a hard, nervous, vibrating laugh; one of those false laughs which seem as if they would break thin glasses, and then she added: ‘Men are never either audacious or clever.’ And after a moment’s silence, she continued: ‘Have you ever been in love, Monsieur Paul?’ I was obliged to acknowledge that I certainly had been, and she asked me to tell her all about it, whereupon I
