“I used to imagine love as something volcanic—at all events the love I was destined to feel. Yes; I really thought I should only be able to love in a savage, devastating way, à la Byron. How ill I knew myself! It was you, Laura, who taught me to know myself; so different from what I thought I was! I was playing the part of a dreadful person and making desperate efforts to resemble him. When I think of the letter I wrote my supposed father before I left home, I feel very much ashamed, I assure you. I took myself for a rebel, an outlaw, who tramples underfoot everything that opposes his desire; and now here I find that when I am with you I have no desires. I longed for liberty as the supreme good, and no sooner was I free, than I bowed myself to your. … Oh, if you only knew how maddening it is to have in one’s head quantities of phrases from great authors, which come irresistibly to one’s lips when one wants to express a sincere feeling. This feeling of mine is so new to me that I haven’t yet been able to invent a language for it. Let’s say it isn’t love, since you dislike that word; let’s call it devotion. It’s as though this liberty which seemed to me so infinite, had had limits set to it by your laws. It’s as though all the turbulent and unformed things that were stirring within me, were dancing an harmonious round, with you for their centre. If one of my thoughts happens to stray from you, I leave it. … Laura, I don’t ask you to love me—I’m nothing but a schoolboy; I’m not worth your notice; but everything I want to do now is in order to deserve your … (oh! the word is frightful!) … your esteem. …”
He had gone down on his knees before her, and though she had at first drawn her chair away a little, Bernard’s forehead was on her dress, and his arms thrown back behind him, in sign of adoration; but when he felt Laura’s hand laid upon his forehead, he seized the hand and pressed his lips to it.
“What a child you are, Bernard! I am not free, either,” she said, taking away her hand. “Here! Read this.”
She took from her bodice a crumpled piece of paper, which she held out to Bernard.
Bernard saw the signature first of all. As he feared, it was Felix Douviers’. One moment he kept the letter in his hand without reading it; he raised his eyes to look at Laura. She was crying. Then Bernard felt one more bond burst in his heart—one of the secret ties which bind each one of us to himself, to his selfish past. Then he read:
My beloved Laura,
In the name of the little child who is to be born, and whom I swear to love as if I were its father, I beseech you to come back. Don’t think that any reproaches will meet you here. Don’t blame yourself too much—that is what hurts me most. Don’t delay. My whole soul awaits you, adores you, is laid humbly at your feet.
Bernard was sitting on the floor in front of Laura, but it was without looking at her that he asked:
“When did you get this?”
“This morning.”
“I thought he knew nothing about it. Did you write and tell him?”
“Yes; I told him everything.”
“Does Edouard know this?”
“He knows nothing about it.”
Bernard remained silent a little while with downcast head; then turning towards her once more:
“And … what do you mean to do now?”
“Do you really ask? … Return to him. It is with him that my place is—with him that I ought to live. You know it.”
“Yes,” said Bernard.
There was a very long silence. Bernard broke it:
“Do you believe one can love someone else’s child as much as one’s own, really?”
“I don’t know if I believe it, but I hope it.”
“For my part, I believe one can. And, on the contrary, I don’t believe in what people call so foolishly ‘the blood speaking.’ I believe this idea that the blood speaks is a mere myth. I have read somewhere that among certain tribes of South Sea Islanders, it is the custom to adopt other people’s children, and that these adopted children are often preferred to the others. The book said—I remember it quite well—‘made more of.’ Do you know what I think now? … I think that my supposed father, who stood in my father’s place, never said or did anything that could let it be suspected that I was not his real son; that in writing to him as I did, that I had always felt the difference, I was lying; that, on the contrary, he showed a kind of predilection for me, which I felt perfectly, so that my ingratitude towards him was all the more abominable; and that I behaved very ill to him. Laura, my friend, I should like to ask you. … Do you think I ought to beg his pardon and go back to him?”
“No,” said Laura.
“Why not? Since you are going back to Douviers?”
“You were telling me just now, that what was true for one is not true for another. I feel I am weak; you are strong. Monsieur Profitendieu may love you; but from what you have told me, you are not of the kind to understand each other. … Or, at any rate, wait a little. Don’t go back to him worsted. Do you want to know what I really think?—that it is for me and not for him that you are proposing it—to get what you called ‘my esteem.’ You will only get it, Bernard, if I feel you are not seeking for it. I can only care for you as you are naturally. Leave repentance to me. It is not for you, Bernard.”
“I almost get to like my name
