"I do not know which path you will choose, my Rose; but we all have two roads by which to reach the goal for which we are making: to be or to seem. The real lovers of life will always choose the first. They will arrive later; perhaps they will never arrive. But, after all, what does arriving mean?"
"Still, why have a goal, if not to reach it?"
The girl's practical logic amused me; and our laughter rang out in unison across the fields.
"Rose, morally speaking, the goal is really the means which we employ to attain it. It is a light which we voluntarily flash in front of our footsteps. We can neither miss it nor reach it, because it moves with us. It becomes greater or smaller or is renewed, according to the evolution of our strength and our life...."
We had risen from the ground and, as we talked, were slowly following the path that skirts the orchard. Rose asked:
"Cannot you more or less describe your goal, the one you are speaking about?"
I hesitated for a moment and, almost involuntarily, murmured:
"To know a little more ... to see a little farther ... to understand a little better...."
"To know a little more ... to see a little...."
But I laughingly stopped her, for the words sounded too serious in our young souls.
The orchard-gate closed between us. I was walking away, when Rose called to me:
I ran back to her. She leant over the hedge and I could only just distinguish her face. Then our lips met of themselves, like flowers that touch.
For a long time, in the still air, I heard her heavy footfall.
Next day, Rose was with me early in the morning:
"I could not sleep," she said. "I wanted to speak to you without tears or blushes. If I have done wrong, I have atoned for it; and it is done with. All that remained of it was a sad memory; and, now that I have considered it with you, even that is gone."
I look at her. Her appearance pleases me. Her step is firm, her cheeks are pale, her eyes burning; she is living more ardently than usual. She continues, with animation:
"You said to me once that people who believe in another life seem to sweep their sins and their remorse up to the doors of eternity. For us, you said, who have not that illusion, everything is different: we do not put off paying the bill for our sins. We can recognise their consequences; and that is our expiation." And you added, proudly, "It is cowardly to look to another for it, even if that other were God!"