Between Two Fires

I was twenty-one years old, and fond of girls to the utmost degree. After studying a year at the university I obtained a post in one of the outlying districts, so I left the university and took up the work. No sooner had my foot touched the ground of my new workplace than I began to examine the place corner by corner, hoping to catch sight of a pretty girl who would keep me company in my solitude and drive the specter of strangeness from my soul.

Before long I met an old friend of mine who had been working there for a long while. He welcomed me, then led me by the hand and introduced me to all the employees, men and women.

And so it was that my hand touched the hand of a girl, smooth and soft and fresh; her face flashed and reflected the electric light into my eyes, then stirred in my soul buried fancies and imaginings. Her name was "Christine." Then I placed my hand in the hands of the rest of those present in greeting, and none caught my full attention except the smooth-skinned "Christine" and "Violette," another girl, dark of complexion, with a sweet smile. Two girls had planted themselves before me at the parting of the ways and begun to toss me about like a feather where whirlwinds meet. And behind my audible conversation with that new company, I strained my brain in study and comparison, weighing in which qualities the first surpassed the second, or the second the first.

The first surpassed the second in softness and beauty. Her lips were set with a slight curve, an artistic construction that with every movement could take possession of one of my nerves — this in addition to the color of her clear, fresh, rosy skin. As for the second, she surpassed the first in the ring of her voice, in her lightness of spirit, in her lovable darkness and refreshing talk. My straining went for nothing, for I did not succeed in reaching any satisfactory settlement with myself in preferring the one over the other.

We left the room where the company was gathered at about ten o'clock, and my old friend Antoine walked beside me. Then he asked me, "How did you find this new society?"

— "It is new in every sense of the word."

— "Did you like the young ladies?"

— "Why do you ask me that question?"

— "Because I have not forgotten you yet."

— "It seems you have some foreigners here."

— "Of course you mean 'Christine' and 'Violette.'"

— "Ah... they did seem foreign to me. What is their origin?"

At this my friend's face turned grave and darkened, and he said: "They are of Greek origin, Albert. They dance and play and jest — but they are honorable, Albert, honorable in the extreme."

I wondered greatly at my friend's answer, for I had known him as a dissolute young man who gave this side of the conventions no thought at all. Then an idea crossed my mind: "Have you fallen in love with one of them?"

— "Who? I? I am engaged. Didn't you know yet? Here is my ring!"

— "Whom have you become engaged to: Christine or Violette?"

— "And what made you suspect those two, Albert? My fiancée lives in Aleppo, and our wedding has drawn near."

— "You devil! Why didn't you tell me before? I wish you every success and happiness."

The next morning I rose very early and paced before my room, breathing in the fresh morning air — and there I came upon the two girls, who added gaiety to the morning light.

"How strange," I said to them, "how did you wake so early?"

"How did you — you — wake so early?" said the dark one.

— "I... I am a man!"

— "And we are two girls of the twentieth century, the century of equality."

— "Delightful! I am proud to meet two modern girls in this town."

A moment later I found myself walking under guard between two angels, amid two rows of cypress trees and their gentle air.

— "It seems life is quiet and romantic in this place," I said to them, and they laughed.

"And the people are romantic too," answered the dark one with charming mockery.

We walked on, enjoying sweet talk, until we came to a deep well, and I asked her:

"What is the meaning of this dry well amid these green trees?"

— "Tell him, Violette, the history of this well," said Christine.

— "This is the well at which Jacob stood when he met Rachel. It has an old, old history."

— "No, no," Christine cut her short, then winked at her slyly. "This is for us to throw into it everyone we want to be rid of. Help me,

Violette!" — and each of them clung to me from one side, pressing hard upon my arms.

— "Do you want to be rid of me so quickly, before you have learned my good from my bad?"

— "Yes!" they cried together, with a melodious burst of laughter.

— "Is this how you rob me of my life while I am still at the beginning of it? For shame!" I shouted, struggling and carrying on between them, but they would not listen to me.

— "Then I too shall use force."

And I wound my arms around their waists and squeezed; they let go of me and gave a pampered, feminine shriek.

"Now I can throw you both in together," I said in a rough, victorious voice, "but I take pity on your youth and your weakness, and I will not pay you back in kind." While we were in that position, my friend Antoine appeared from behind one of the cypress trees, his face soured; Christine called out to him, and he joined us on our morning stroll. From that morning on, my friendship with those two girls grew, and I became their favored companion, lost between love of the two of them, not knowing toward which of them my heart was leading me. Whenever I was alone with one, I decided once and for all that she alone contained all the beauty there was in existence, and that she and no other possessed my affections. But my judgments crumbled and vanished the moment I was alone with the second instead of the first... A sheer weathervane I was in those days.

As for my old friend "Antoine," he astonished me by the change and reversal of his ways. He was no longer the playful, merry, dissolute young man I had known before; he had become grave, shut in upon himself, a keeper of the principles of custom and tradition. If he read a book or an article containing ideas of renewal, or views contrary to reaction, he threw the book aside and counted it worthless. If he met a girl with bare forearms strolling with a young man in some playful dalliance, he flared up against her and his soul filled with disgust. Or if he watched a motion picture whose heroine kissed two men at one time, he directed his curses at those wreckers of morals and principles, the producers of films.

"When a man is about to marry, does he change like that?" I asked myself.

— "When do you mean to marry?" I asked him one day.

"Have you no subject but this one?" he answered me with sharpness and agitation. But I kept hold of my nerves: "How strange, Antoine — is it a crime if I ask you the date of your wedding?"

— "The mere question is no crime; but I am sorry when I see a cultivated young man like you possessed by his appetites, thinking of nothing but the base animal instincts!"

My friend is in a fit of madness, I said to myself; let me lie in wait and see the outcome. "But who told you that I no longer think of anything but base instincts?"

— "I read all that is in your thoughts from your tone in conversation, from your movements plain to the eye... Think — think only of the shame and misery you bring upon that simple girl whom you tempt with your talk and your dalliance. Think of what this girl will come to in her future life. Do you not feel that you are the cause of her misery from beginning to end?"

— "Sorry — very sorry!" I brought it out with a deep sigh, shaking my head to the right and to the left.

"You ought to be sorry. Of course you ought."

— "I am sorry for one thing only: that I am the sole hearer of this sermon — this sermon that millions ought to have heard. It should have been broadcast on the radio, written in the newspapers, recited in the cinemas, taken down on phonograph records and the microphone and the..."

— "Empty talk!" my friend Antoine shouted in a fury, and vanished from before me. As for me, I stayed in my place a moment, frozen — when the dark girl passed before me and woke me from my stupor: "What has come over you? A heart attack?"

— "Yes!"

— "Poor thing... tell me what you are meditating on."

— "I am meditating on the guardian angel, on the Holy Spirit, on the apostolic blessing that has descended upon my friend Antoine..."

— "It seems you two have been through the thick of a battle. Poor Antoine — don't you know what has befallen him?"

— "What? Is there something more than the descent of the Spirit?" (I said it eagerly.)

— "He has broken the engagement and quarreled with his fiancée."

— "No... is that true? Now I know why he was so intractable in temper just now."

That evening I withdrew early to my chamber. No sooner had the clock struck eight than I heard two voices speaking in a faint whisper on the road beneath my window. My heart quickened at once and my curiosity was aroused, especially when I made out the voice of my friend Antoine and the voice of the fair Greek girl, Christine. So I slipped out of my room, driven by an unconscious force — it may have been the force of envy, or the force of curiosity, or the love of adventure, I do not know — and followed them quietly and warily until they came to an empty, open place; then I lay in wait behind a tree trunk and listened.

"And now what do you want of me, Antoine? Why have you led me here?" said the fair Greek girl. And Antoine stammered: "You know,

Christine — you know why I led you here."

— "I know?! What do you mean?"

— "Have you not heard that I have left my fiancée, that I have returned her the engagement ring?"

— "I heard something of that, but I did not understand the reason."

— "The reason... the reason is you, Christine! I have thought long, and I found that success in marriage was impossible for me so long as you were in my heart."

— "For my sake you left your fiancée?"

— "Yes, for your sake. I am ready to sacrifice everything for you."

— "But — but, Antoine, we were never anything but friends. Our relations never passed beyond those bounds."

— "You... you say you do not... is this your final answer?"

— "Why did you leave your fiancée? Why did you not tell me before — why?"

— "I hinted, many times... I did not dare make any request with my ring on my finger."

Then their talk turned this way and that, meaning nothing but its final outcome: total refusal, in strong and frank terms. And Antoine's fury flared:

— "Because you are a traitress! Because you prefer a life of play and dalliance with a rakish young man to an honorable married life."

— "Antoine, why did you leave your fiancée? Is not that a real betrayal?"

— "Yes, I am the traitor... I am the madman, I..." And he vanished from before her like a stormy whirlwind.

In that minute I understood how the angel of purity had descended upon my friend Antoine, and why he had been adorned with virtue and righteousness and the guarding of honor. And in that minute too I decided, without hesitation, which of those two girls it was I loved. And I fell into a strong, honorable love that became a great pillar of my life...