“I came in for several reasons. One of them is that I didn’t know you were here.”
“Therese didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“Never talked to you about me?”
I hesitated only for a moment. “Never,” I said. Then I asked in my turn, “Did she tell you I was here?”
“No,” she said.
“It’s very clear she did not mean us to come together again.”
“Neither did I, my dear.”
“What do you mean by speaking like this, in this tone, in these words? You seem to use them as if they were a sort of formula. Am I a dear to you? Or is anybody? … or everybody? …”
She had been for some time raised on her elbow, but then as if something had happened to her vitality she sank down till her head rested again on the sofa cushion.
“Why do you try to hurt my feelings?” she asked.
“For the same reason for which you call me dear at the end of a sentence like that: for want of something more amusing to do. You don’t pretend to make me believe that you do it for any sort of reason that a decent person would confess to.”
The colour had gone from her face; but a fit of wickedness was on me and I pursued, “What are the motives of your speeches? What prompts your actions? On your own showing your life seems to be a continuous running away. You have just run away from Paris. Where will you run tomorrow? What are you everlastingly running from—or is it that you are running after something? What is it? A man, a phantom—or some sensation that you don’t like to own to?”
Truth to say, I was abashed by the silence which was her only answer to this sally. I said to myself that I would not let my natural anger, my just fury be disarmed by any assumption of pathos or dignity. I suppose I was really out of my mind and what in the middle ages would have been called “possessed” by an evil spirit. I went on enjoying my own villainy.
“Why aren’t you in Tolosa? You ought to be in Tolosa. Isn’t Tolosa the proper field for your abilities, for your sympathies, for your profusions, for your generosities—the king without a crown, the man without a fortune! But here there is nothing worthy of your talents. No, there is no longer anything worth any sort of trouble here. There isn’t even that ridiculous Monsieur George. I understand that the talk of the coast from here to Cette is that Monsieur George is drowned. Upon my word I believe he is. And serve him right, too. There’s Therese, but I don’t suppose that your love for your sister …”
“For goodness’ sake don’t let her come in and find you here.”
Those words recalled me to myself, exorcised the evil spirit by the mere enchanting power of the voice. They were also impressive by their suggestion of something practical, utilitarian, and remote from sentiment. The evil spirit left me and I remained taken aback slightly.
“Well,” I said, “if you mean that you want me to leave the room I will confess to you that I can’t very well do it yet. But I could lock both doors if you don’t mind that.”
“Do what you like as long as you keep her out. You two together would be too much for me tonight. Why don’t you go and lock those doors? I have a feeling she is on the prowl.”
I got up at once saying, “I imagine she has gone to bed by this time.” I felt absolutely calm and responsible. I turned the keys one after another so gently that I couldn’t hear the click of the locks myself. This done I recrossed the room with measured steps, with downcast eyes, and approaching the couch without raising them from the carpet I sank down on my knees and leaned my forehead on its edge. That penitential attitude had but little remorse in it. I detected no movement and heard no sound from her. In one place a bit of the fur coat touched my cheek softly, but no forgiving hand came to rest on my bowed head. I only breathed deeply the faint scent of violets, her own particular fragrance enveloping my body, penetrating my very heart with an inconceivable intimacy, bringing me closer to her than the closest embrace, and yet so subtle that I sensed her existence in me only as a great, glowing, indeterminate tenderness, something like the evening light disclosing after the white passion of the day infinite depths in the colours of the sky and an unsuspected soul of peace in the protean forms of life. I had not known such quietness for months; and I detected in myself an immense fatigue, a longing to remain where I was without changing my position to the end of time. Indeed to remain seemed to me a complete solution for all the problems that life presents—even as to the very death itself.
Only the unwelcome reflection that this was impossible made me get up at last with a sigh of deep grief at the end of the dream. But I got up without despair. She didn’t murmur, she didn’t stir. There was something august in the stillness of the room. It was a strange peace which she shared with me in this unexpected shelter full of disorder in its neglected splendour. What troubled me was the sudden, as it were material, consciousness of time passing as water flows. It seemed to me that it was only the tenacity of my sentiment that held that woman’s body, extended and tranquil above
