ROSETTE.
You don't love me any more.
I.
That doesn't follow very logically from what precedes; it's almost as logical as to say: "It rains, so don't give me my umbrella;" or: "It's cold, open the window."
ROSETTE.
You don't love me, you have never loved me.
I.
Aha! the plot thickens; you don't love me any more and you have never loved me. That is rather contradictory; how can I cease to do a thing which I never began to do?--You see, my little queen, you don't know what you are saying and you are perfectly ridiculous.
ROSETTE.
I longed so to have you love me that I helped to deceive myself. It is easy to believe what one desires; but now I see that I am mistaken. You made a mistake yourself; you mistook liking for love and desire for passion. It's something that happens every day. I bear you no ill will for it: it wasn't your fault that you weren't in love with me; my own lack of charm is all that I have to blame. I ought to have been prettier, more playful, more of a flirt; I ought to have tried to rise to your level, O my poet! instead of trying to pull you down to mine: I was afraid of losing you among the clouds, and I dreaded lest your head should steal your heart from me. I imprisoned you in my love and I thought that, if I gave myself to you utterly, you would keep a little something of me--
I.
Move away a little, Rosette; your leg burns me--you're like a hot coal.
ROSETTE.
If I annoy you, I'll get up.--Ah! stony heart, drops of water pierce the stone, but my tears have no effect on you. (_She weeps_).
I.
If you weep like that, you will certainly make a bathtub of our bed.--A bathtub, did I say? an ocean.--Can you swim, Rosette?
ROSETTE.
Villain!
I.
Oho! now I am a villain! You flatter me, Rosette, I haven't that honor. I am a blithesome bourgeois, alas! and I have never committed the least crime; I have done a foolish thing, perhaps, in loving you to distraction; that is all.--Are you absolutely determined to make me repent that?--I have loved you and I love you now as much as I can. Since I have been your lover I have always walked in your shadow: I have given you all my time, my days and my nights. I have indulged in no high-flown phrases with you because I don't care for them except when they are written; but I have given you a thousand proofs of my affection. I won't speak of the most scrupulous fidelity, for that goes without saying; but I have lost a pound and three-quarters since you have been my mistress. What more do you want? Here I am in your bed; I was here yesterday, I shall be here to-morrow. Is that the way a man acts with a woman he doesn't love? I do whatever you want; you say: "Go," and I go; "stay," and I stay; I am the most admirable lover in the world, it seems to me.
ROSETTE.
That is just what I complain of--you are the most perfect lover in the world.
I.
What have you to reproach me for?
ROSETTE.
Nothing; and I would prefer to have some reason to complain of you.
I.
This is an extraordinary quarrel.
ROSETTE.
It's much worse than that.--You don't love me.--I can do nothing about it, nor can you.--What remedy have I for that? Certainly I would prefer to have something to forgive you for.--I would scold you; you would apologize as best you could and we should make up.
I.
That would be all clear gain for you. The greater the crime, the more imposing the reparation.
ROSETTE.
You know very well, monsieur, that I am not yet reduced to that, and that if I chose, at this moment, although you don't love me and we are quarrelling--
I.
Yes, I agree that it is purely the result of your kindness of heart.--Be a little kind now; that would be better than syllogizing over our heads as we are doing.
ROSETTE.
You want to cut short a conversation that embarrasses you; but by your leave, my good friend, we will be content with talking.
I.
That's a cheap repast.--I assure you that you are making a mistake, for you are distractingly pretty, and I have sensations.
ROSETTE.
Which you can describe some other time.
I.
Aha! my adorable, you have become a little Hyrcanian tigress, have you? your cruelty to-day is beyond words!--Have you been taken with the fever to set yourself up as a vestal? It would be an amusing whim.
ROSETTE.
Why not? stranger whims have been known; but this much is sure, I shall be a vestal so far as you are concerned.--Understand, monsieur, that I give myself only to people who love me or who I think love me.--You are in neither position.--Allow me to rise.
I.
If you rise, I shall rise too.--You will have the trouble of going back to bed, that's all.
ROSETTE.
Let me go!
I.
_Pardieu_, no!
Rosette (_struggling)._
Oh! you shall let me go!
I.
I venture, madame, to assure you of the contrary.
ROSETTE (_seeing that she is not the stronger)._
All right! I will stay! you squeeze my arms so tight!--What do you want of me?
I.
I think you know.--I would not allow myself to put in words what I allow myself to do; I have too much respect for decency.
ROSETTE (_already beyond the power to defend herself_).
On condition that you will love me dearly--I surrender.
I.
It's a little late to strike your flag, when the enemy is already in the citadel.
ROSETTE (_half swooning, throwing her arms around my neck_).
Unconditionally. I rely on your generosity.
I.
You do well.
At this point, my dear friend, I think it would not be amiss to place a line of asterisks, for the rest of the dialogue could hardly be translated except by onomatopœia.
* * * * *
The sunbeam has had time, since the opening of the scene, to make the tour of the bedroom. A pleasant, penetrating odor of linden-trees comes up from the garden. It is as beautiful a day as can be imagined; the sky is as blue as an Englishwoman's eye. We rise, and, after breakfasting with a good appetite, we take a long drive in the country. The clear air, the beauty of the landscape and the aspect of nature in her joyous mood instilled enough sentimentality and tenderness into my soul to make Rosette agree that, after all, I have something in the shape of a heart like other men.
Have you never noticed how the shade of the woods, the plashing of fountains, the singing of birds, a bright and laughing landscape, the odor of the leaves and flowers, all the paraphernalia of eclogues and descriptive poems which we have agreed to despise, none the less retain a secret influence over us, however depraved we may be, which it is impossible for us to resist? I will tell you in confidence, under seal of the most profound secrecy, that I surprised myself very recently in a most provincial state of emotion in connection with a nightingale's song. It was in D----'s garden; the sky, although it was night, was almost as bright as at noonday; it was so measureless and so transparent that one's glance easily penetrated to God. It seemed to me as if I could see the folds of the angels' robes on the white windings of the Milky Way. The moon had risen, but a great tree hid it completely; it riddled the dark foliage with a million little luminous holes and showered more spangles about than ever glittered upon a marchioness's fan. A silence laden with faint sounds and sighs filled the garden--perhaps this resembles pathos, but it is not my fault;--although I saw nothing save the bluish gleam of the moon, it seemed to me as if I were surrounded by a whole population of phantoms, unknown yet adored, and I had no feeling of loneliness, although there was no one but myself on the terrace.--I was not thinking, I was not dreaming, I was blended with my surroundings and I felt myself shiver with the foliage, glisten with the water, gleam with the moonbeams, bloom with the flowers; I was no more myself than the tree, the streamlet, or the four-o'clock. I was all of them at once, and I do not think it possible to be more thoroughly removed from one's self than I was at that moment. Suddenly, as if something extraordinary had happened, the leaf ceased to flutter at the end of the branch, the drop of water from the fountain remained suspended in the air and did not fall. The silvery thread, starting from the edge of the moon, stopped on the way; my heart alone beat with such resonance that it seemed to fill the whole vast space with clamor.--My heart ceased to beat and there was such a profound silence that you could have heard the grass grow, and a word spoken in an undertone two hundred leagues away. And then the nightingale, who probably was awaiting that moment to begin his song, emitted from his little throat a note so shrill and piercing that I heard it with my breast no less than with my ears. The sound spread quickly through the crystalline expanse, until that moment as still as death, and created a harmonious atmosphere, wherein the other notes that followed it flew to and fro, flapping their wings.--I understood what he said as perfectly as if I had known the secret of the bird language. The story of the loves I have not found was what the nightingale sang. Never was a truer story told or told with greater fulness. He did not omit the smallest detail, the most imperceptible shade. He told me what I had not been able to tell myself, he explained what I had not been able to understand; he gave voice to my reverie and compelled the phantom, hitherto dumb, to reply. I knew that I was beloved, and a thrill most languorously drawn out informed me that I should soon be happy. It seemed to me that I could see the white arms of my beloved extended toward me through the trills and quavers of his song and beneath the shower of notes, in a moonbeam.