Bernard did not finish his sentence; on the point of naming an illustrious contemporary, he hesitated between too many of them. He shrugged his shoulders and went on:
“I have a confused feeling in myself of extraordinary aspirations, surgings, stirrings, incomprehensible agitations, which I don’t want to understand—which I don’t even want to observe, for fear of preventing them. Not so long ago, I was constantly talking to myself. Now, even if I wanted to, I shouldn’t be able to. It was a mania that came to an end suddenly, without my even being aware of it. I think that this habit of soliloquizing—of inward dialogue, as our professor used to call it—necessitated a kind of division of the personality, which I ceased to be capable of, the day that I began to love someone else better than myself.”
“You mean Laura,” said Olivier. “Do you still love her as much as ever?”
“No,” said Bernard; “more than ever. I think it’s the special quality of love not to be able to remain stationary, to be obliged to increase under pain of diminishing; and that’s what distinguishes it from friendship.”
“Friendship, too, can grow less,” said Olivier sadly.
“I think that the margins of friendship aren’t so wide.”
“I say … you won’t be angry if I ask you something?”
“Try.”
“I don’t want to make you angry.”
“If you keep your questions to yourself, you’ll make me more angry still.”
“I want to know whether you feel … desire for Laura.”
Bernard suddenly became very grave.
“If it weren’t you …” he began. “Well, old boy, it’s a curious thing that’s happened to me: ever since I have come to know her, all my desires have gone; I have none left at all. You remember in the old days how I used to be all fire and flame for twenty women at once whom I happened to pass by in the street (and that’s the very thing that prevented me from choosing any one of them); well, now it seems to me that I shall never be touched again by any other form of beauty than hers; that I shall never be able to love any other forehead than hers; her lips, her eyes. But what I feel for her is veneration; when I am with her every carnal thought seems an impiety. I think I was mistaken about myself, and that in reality I am very chaste by nature. Thanks to Laura, my instincts have been sublimated. I feel I have within me great unemployed forces. I should like to make them take up service. I envy the Carthusian who bends his pride to the rule of his order; the person to whom one says: ‘I count upon you.’ I envy the soldier. … Or rather, no; I envy no one; but the turbulence I feel within me oppresses me and my aspiration is to discipline it. It’s like steam inside me; it may whistle as it escapes (that’s poetry), put in motion wheels and pistons; or even burst the engine. Do you know the act which I sometimes think would express me best? It’s. … Oh! I know well enough I shan’t kill myself; but I understand Dmitri Karamazov perfectly when he asks his brother if he understands a person killing himself out of enthusiasm, out of sheer excess of life … just bursting.”
An extraordinary radiance shone from his whole being. How well he expressed himself! Olivier gazed at him in a kind of ecstasy.
“So do I,” he murmured timidly, “I understand killing oneself too; but it would be after having tasted a joy so great, that all one’s life to come would seem pale beside it; a joy so great, that it would make one feel: ‘I have had enough. I am content; never again shall I. …’ ”
But Bernard was not listening. He stopped. What was the use of talking to empty air? All his sky clouded over again. Bernard took out his watch:
“I must be off. Well then, this evening, you say? … What time?”
“Oh, I should think ten would be early enough. Will you come?”
“Yes. I’ll try to bring Edouard, too. But you know he doesn’t much care for Passavant; and literary gatherings bore him. It would only be to see you. I say, can’t we meet somewhere after my Latin paper?” Olivier did not immediately answer. He reflected with despair that he had promised to meet Passavant that afternoon at the printer’s to talk over the printing of the Vanguard. What would he not have given to be free?
“I should like to, but I’m engaged.”
No trace of his unhappiness was apparent; and Bernard answered:
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter.”
And at that the two friends parted.
Olivier had said nothing to Bernard of all he had meant and hoped to say. He was afraid Bernard had taken a dislike to him. He took a dislike to himself. He, so gay, so smart that morning, walked now with lowered head. Passavant’s friendship, of which at first he had been so proud, began to be irksome to him; for he felt Bernard’s reprobation weighing upon it. Even if he were to meet his friend at the dinner that evening, he would be unable to speak to him in front of all those people. He would be unable to enjoy the dinner if they had not come to an understanding beforehand. And what an unfortunate idea his vanity had suggested to him of trying to get Uncle Edouard to come too! There, in the presence of Passavant, surrounded by elder men, by other writers, by the future contributors to the Vanguard, he would be obliged to show off. Edouard would misjudge him still more—misjudge him no doubt irrevocably. … If only he could see him before this evening! … see him at once; he would fling his arms round his neck; he would cry perhaps; he
