by André Gide
“No, let me,” she said as I began to gropingly try to play. “I prefer to try to do it alone.” And I left her gladly since the chapel did not appear to be a decent place for me to be alone with her, not so much for respect of the sacred place, but for fear of gossipers which I ordinarily forced myself not to pay attention to. But this activity was more about her than it was about me. Whenever my pastoral visits called me in this direction, I would take her to the church and leave her alone, often for long hours, and then go to pick her up upon my return. She worked patiently to discover different sound combinations, and I would find her in the evening being attentive to some harmony that had plunged her into an extended delight.
On one of the first days of August after a little more than six months of this, not having found a poor widow at home to whom I was going to give consolation, I went back to the church to get Gertrude where I had left her. She had not expected me so early, and I was extremely surprised to find Jacques next to her. Neither one nor the other had heard me enter, because the small amount of noise that I made was covered up by the sounds of the organ. It is not in my nature to spy, but anything that concerned Gertrude touched my heart. Muffling the noise of my feet, I furtively climbed the several steps of the stairway which led to the forum, which was an excellent observation post. I must say that for all the time that I remained there, I did not hear one or the other of them speak a word. But he was next to her, and on several occasions I saw him take her hand to guide her fingers over the keys. Was it not strange that she was accepting from him observations and direction that she had told me previously she preferred to do by herself? I was quite surprised and then hurt more than I would have wanted to confess to myself, and I already decided to intervene when I saw Jacques suddenly look at his watch.
“It is time for me to leave you,” he said “because my father will return soon.”
I then saw him hold her hand up to his lips, and then he left. Several instants later, having climbed down noiselessly on the stairway, I opened the door of the church in a way that she could hear it and believe that I was just entering.
“Oh good, Gertrude! Are you ready to go home? Did you enjoy the organ?”
“Yes, very much,” she said to me in the most natural voice. “I really made some progress today.”
A great sadness filled my heart, but neither one of us ever made allusion to what I just described.
It was some time before I was alone with Jacques. My wife, Gertrude, and the children went to bed soon after dinner, as they usually did, and the two of us were left alone. I was waiting for this moment. But before I could speak to him I felt my heart swell up with troubled feelings, and I did not know how to bring up the subject that was tormenting me. And then he brusquely broke up the silence by announcing to me his decision to spend all of his vacation with us. For, only a few days earlier, he told us about his plans to travel through the High Alps, and my wife and I both strongly approved of this. I knew that my friend T…, whom he had chosen to be his companion on the trip, would be expecting him. It also clearly appeared to me that this sudden change was certainly tied to the scene that I had been surprised by in the church. A great indignation came over me at first, but I feared that if I acted emotionally that my son would be eternally angry with me. I also feared that I would regret saying harsh words, so I made a great effort to control myself and said, in the most natural voice that I could,
“I believe that T… is counting on you.”
“Oh!” he responded, “He is not counting on me absolutely, and it will not be difficult for him to replace me. I can rest just as well here as in the high country, and I really believe that I can employ my time better here than by walking through the mountains.”
“So,” I said, “have you found something here to keep you busy?”
He looked at me, perceiving some irony in the tone of my voice, but, not yet knowing my motivation, he said casually,
“You know that I always preferred reading to watching the animals in the mountains.”
“Yes, my friend,” I said while staring directly at him, “but do you not believe that organ lessons are more attractive to you than reading?”
Without doubt he felt himself blushing, for he put his hand in front of his forehead as if he were blocking the glare of a lamp. But he quickly recomposed himself and said in a voice that I would have wished to be less self-assured,
“Do not accuse me of too much, my father. My intention is not to hide anything from you, and you have gotten ahead of the words that I was getting ready to tell you.”
He spoke deliberately, like one reads a book, completing his words with so much calmness, it seemed that they were coming out by themselves. The extraordinary self-control that he displayed exasperated me. Sensing that I was going to interrupt him, he raised his hand as if to say, no, you can speak afterwards. Let me first continue. But then I seized his arm and shook it, saying,
“Rather than see you bring trouble to the poor soul of Gertrude,” I cried out impetuously, “Ah! I would prefer never to see you again. I do not need your words! To abuse the infirmity, the innocence, the candor of Gertrude, that is an abominable cowardice that I would not have believed you capable of! And to speak to me about it with that detestable self-assuredness! Hear me well. I am responsible for Gertrude, and I will not accept for you to speak to her, to touch her, or to see her for even one more day.”
“But, my father,” he replied in the same tranquil tone that drove me crazy, “you must believe that I respect Gertrude as much as you do. You are very much mistaken if you think that there is anything reprehensible going on. I am not talking about just my behavior, but about my plans and the secret of my heart. I love Gertrude, and I respect her as much as I love her, I tell you. The idea of troubling her, abusing her innocence and her blindness is as abominable to me as it is to you.”
Then he said that what he wanted to be for her was a support, a friend, a husband. He did not feel the need to tell me this before he had made the decision to marry her. Gertrude herself was not yet aware of this resolution, and he had decided to speak to me about it first.
“Those are the words that I wanted to say to you,” he added, “and you can believe that I have nothing else to confess to you.”
These words shocked me. Even while listening to them I could hear my temples beating. I had only been preparing reproaches, but since he took away all reason for me to be indignant, I only felt crippled such that at the end of his speech I could not find anything more to say to him.
“Let’s go to sleep,” I finally said after a long silence. I stood up and placed my hand on his shoulder.
“Tomorrow I will tell you what I think about all this.”
“Tell me at least that you will not be irritated at me any longer.”
“I need the night to think about it.”
When I found Jacques the next day, it really seemed to me that I was looking at him for the first time. It appeared to me all of a sudden that my son was no longer a child but a young man. Since I had been looking at him as if he were a child, this love he described seemed to be monstrous. I spent the night trying to convince myself that it was, to the contrary, natural and normal. Where did this deep dissatisfaction come from? This only became evident to me a bit later. In the meantime I needed to speak to Jacques and tell him of my decision because an instinct as sound as my conscience was warning me that this marriage must be avoided at any price.
I led Jacques to the end of the garden, and it was there that I first asked him,
“Have you declared yourself to Gertrude?”
“No,” he said to me. “Perhaps she already senses my love, but I have confessed nothing to her.”
“Good! You are going to promise me that you will not speak to her anymore.”
“My
father, I promised myself to obey you, but can I know your reasons?”
I hesitated to give them to him, not knowing if those that came first in my mind were the proper ones to begin with. To tell the truth, my conscience rather than logic was dictating my actions.
“Gertrude is too young,” I finally said. “Remember that she has not even taken her First Communion. You know that this is not a child like all the others, alas! and that her development has been held back for a long time. No doubt she would be too sensitive, as confident as she is, to the first words of love that she hears. That is precisely why it is important that you not say them to her. To throw her into something that she has no defense against, that would be cowardice. I know that you are not a coward. You say that your feelings are not reprehensible, but I find them at fault because they are too premature. Gertrude has not yet learned to be prudent, and it is up to us to teach her that. This is an affair of conscience.
Jacques could always be convinced of something by these simple words, “I appeal to your conscience.” I often used them when he was a child. However while I was looking at him I thought that if Gertrude were here to see him, she certainly would admire this large and trim body which was so straight and supple at the same time, this handsome forehead without wrinkles, this frank look, this face that was still childlike but which suddenly had a somber look. He was bareheaded, and his ashen hair, which was quite long, was curled lightly at his temples and half hid his ears.
“And I also want to ask something else of you,” I went on, while standing up from the bench that we were seated upon. “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. At his age can one really know his desires?”
“Oh! Even much later one does not always know them,” she finally said, bizarrely.
Her puzzling and sententious tone irritated me, because I am by nature very frank and open, and I don’t take easily to mystery. Turning myself towards her, I asked her to explain what she was insinuating by that.
“Nothing, my friend,” she said sadly. “I was only thinking that sometimes you are wishing that you be advised of what you had not noticed.”
“And so?”
“And so I was saying that it is not always easy to advise.”
I told her that I was horrified by mystery, and did not appreciate double meanings.
“When you want me to understand you, make an effort to express yourself more clearly,” I replied, in a manner that was a bit brutal and which I regretted right away, for I saw her lips tremble in an instant. She turned her head and then, getting up, made several hesitant steps as if she was faltering in the room.
“But Amélie,” I cried out, “why do you continue to be so upset now that everything has been resolved?”
I felt that my look was bothering her, and with her back turned and putting my elbows on the table with my head leaning against my hand, I said to her,
“I spoke to you harshly a little while ago. Pardon me.”
Then I heard her approaching me, and I felt her fingers softly placed on my forehead while she said in a tender voice that was full of tears,