“You said you had the intention to leave on the day after tomorrow. I ask you not to delay this departure. You must be gone for an entire month. I ask you not to shorten this voyage by even one day. Is that understood?”

 

“Yes, my father, I will obey you.”

 

It appeared to me that he was becoming extremely pale to the point that his lips no longer had any color. But I persuaded myself that his love must not be that strong, since he had made such a prompt submission. And I felt myself indescribably happy at this thought. In addition, I was sensitive to his docility.

 

“I find again the child that I loved,” I said to him softly, and pulling him towards me I placed my lips on his forehead. He pulled back a bit, but I did not want that to affect me.

10 March

 

Our house is so small that we are sometimes obliged to live as if we are on top of each other, and this is sometimes bothersome for my work even though I reserved a little room on the first floor where I can go and receive my visitors. It is also bothersome when I want to speak to one of my children in particular without wanting to give the meeting too much solemn emphasis as if the room would become a parlor where the children would jokingly call the Holy Place where it is forbidden for them to enter. But that same morning Jacques left for Neuchâtel where he had to buy some hiking boots, and since the weather was good, after lunch the children left with Gertrude whom they were leading along and who sometimes in turn led them. (I have the pleasure to note here that Charlotte is particularly close with her.) I found myself very naturally alone with Amélie at the time for tea which we always had together in the common room. This is what I wanted, because I had been waiting to speak to her. I am so seldom alone with her that I felt somewhat timid, and the importance of what I had to say to her troubled me as if it were not the confessions of Jacques that I wanted to speak of but my own. I also was wondering, before I began to speak, at what point two beings who live the same life together and who love each other can remain (or become) puzzling and separated from one another. In such cases the words spoken, be they those we speak to someone else or those someone else speaks to us, seem plaintively like soundings that warn us of the resistance of this separating partition which, if one is not careful, can grow thicker.

 

“Jacques spoke to me last evening and this morning,” I began, while she poured the tea, and my voice was as trembling as that of Jacques was assured yesterday. “He spoke to me of his love for Gertrude.”

 

“He did well to speak to you of it,” she said, without looking at me and continuing her work, as if I said something to her that was perfectly natural, or rather, as if I wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know.

 

“He spoke to me of his desire to marry her. His resolution…”

 

“That was expected,” she murmured while lightly shrugging her shoulders.

 

“So you suspected it?” I said a bit nervously.

 

“One could see it coming for a long time. But that is not the kind of thing that men notice.”

 

Since it would not serve any purpose to protest and since there was perhaps a bit of truth in her words, I simply objected,

 

“In that case, you should have alerted me.”

 

She had a tense little smile at the corner of her lips as she sometimes does when protecting her reticence, and while shaking her head obliquely she said,

 

“And if I had to alert you every time you didn’t notice something!”

 

What did that insinuation signify? That is what I did not know nor did I want to attempt to learn. I moved on. “So what I would like to hear is what you think about this.”

She sighed and then said,

 

“You know, my friend, that I never approved of the presence of this child among us.”

 

It was hard for me not to become irritated with her bringing up the past like that.

 

“This is not about the presence of Gertrude,” I said, but Amélie had already continued,

 

“I always thought that it would only result in annoyance.”

 

Feeling a great desire for conciliation, I leapt into this sentence,

 

“So you are against such a marriage. Good! That is what I wanted to hear from you. I am happy that we both have the same opinion.” I added that for the rest, Jacques had quietly submitted to the reasons that I gave him for abandoning his ideas, and so she no longer has anything to worry about. I added that he had agreed to leave tomorrow for the voyage that would keep him away an entire month.

 

“Since I am not worried any more than you are that he will find Gertrude again upon his return,” I said finally, “I thought it would be best if she would move in with Mlle de la M… at whose house I could continue to see her because I cannot deny that I have obligations towards her. I have already warned the new hostess, and she only wants to oblige us. And so you will be free of a presence that is painful for you. Louise de la M… will take care of Gertrude, and she seems delighted by the arrangement. She is happy that she can give her music lessons.”

 

Amélie seems to have decided to remain silent. I began again,

 

“Since we must avoid Jacques going to see Gertrude over there behind our backs, I believe that it would be good to warn Mlle de la M… of the situation, don’t you agree?”

 

I was trying to obtain a word from Amélie through this question, but she kept her lips closed as if she had sworn to say nothing. And I continued, not because I had anything else to add but because I could not support her silence.

 

“For the rest, perhaps Jacques will return from this voyage already cured of his love.