WHENthe train pulled into the station at Bains, the street lamps were already lit, and though the station was bright with its red and white and green signals, Edgar unexpectedly felt a dread of the approaching night. In the daytime he would still have been confident. People would have been thronging the streets, and you could sit down on a bench and rest, or look into the shop windows. But how would he be able to stand it when the people had all withdrawn into their homes and gone to bed for a night’s peaceful sleep while he, conscious of wrongdoing, wandered about alone in a strange city? Just to have a roof over his head, not to spend another momentunder the open heavens! That was his one distinct feeling.
He hurried along the familiar way without looking to right or left until he reached his grandmother’s villa. It was on a beautiful, broad avenue, placed, not free to the gaze of passersby but behind the vines and shrubbery and ivy of a well-kept garden, a gleam behind a cloud of green, a white, old-fashioned, friendly house. Edgar peeped through the iron grill like a stranger. No sound came from within and the windows were closed. Evidently the family and guests were in the garden behind the house.
Edgar was about to pull the door-bell when something odd occurred. Suddenly the thing that only a few hours before had seemed quite natural to him had now become impossible. How was he to go into the house, how meet his grandmother and her family, how endure all the questions they would besiege him with,and how answer them? How would he be able to bear the looks they would give him when he would tell, as he would be obliged to, that he had run away from his mother? And, above all, how would he explain his monstrous deed, which he himself no longer understood? A door in the house slammed, and Edgar, in a sudden panic at being detected, ran off.
When he reached the park he paused. It was dark there, and he expected to find it empty and thought it would be a good place to sit down in and rest and at last reflect quietly and come to some understanding with himself about his fate. He passed through the gateway timidly. A few lamps were burning near the entrance, giving the young leaves on the trees a ghostly gleam of transparent green, but deeper in the park, down the hill, everything lay like a single, black, fermenting mass in the darkness.
Edgar, eager to be alone, slipped past thefew people who were sitting in the light of the lamps, talking or reading. But even in the deep shadows of the unilluminated pathways it was not quiet. There were low whisperings that seemed to shun the light, sounds mingled with the rustling of the leaves, the scraping of feet, subdued voices, all mingled with a certain voluptuous, sighing, groaning sound that seemed to emanate from people and animals and nature, all in a disturbed sleep. It was a restlessness that had something foreboding in it, something sneaking, hidden, puzzling, a sort of subterranean stirring in the wood that was connected perhaps with nothing but the spring, yet had a peculiarly alarming effect upon the child.
He cowered into a diminutive heap on a bench and tried to think of what he was to say at home. But his thoughts slipped away from him as on a slippery surface before he could grasp his own ideas, and in spite of himself hehad to keep listening and listening to the muffled tones, the mystical voices of the darkness. How terrible the darkness was, how bewildering and yet how mysteriously beautiful!
Were they animals, or people, or was it merely the ghostly hand of the wind that wove together all this rustling and crackling and whirring? He listened. It was the wind gently moving the tree tops. No, it wasn’t, it was people—now he could see distinctly—couples arm in arm, who came up from the lighted city to enliven the darkness with their perplexing presence. What were they after? He could not make out. They were not talking to each other, because he heard no voices. All he could catch was the sound of their tread on the gravel and here and there the sight of their figures moving like shadows past some clear space between the trees, always with their arms round each other, like his mother and the baron in the moonlight.
So the great, dazzling, portentous secret was here, too.
Steps approached. A subdued laugh. Edgar, for fear of being discovered, drew deeper into the dark. But the couple now groping their way in the deep gloom had no eyes for him. They passed him by, closely locked, and they stopped only a few feet beyond his bench. They pressed their faces together. Edgar could not see clearly, but he heard a soft groan from the woman, and the man stammering mad, ardent words. A sort of sultry presentiment touched Edgar’s alarm with a shudder that was sensual and pleasant.
The couple stayed thus a minute or so, and then the gravel crunched under their tread again, and the sound of their footsteps died away in the darkness.
A tremor went through Edgar. His blood whirled hot through his veins, and all of a sudden he felt unbearably alone in this bewilderingdarkness, and the need came upon him with elemental force for the sound of a friend’s voice, an embrace, a bright room, people he loved. The whole perplexing darkness this night seemed to be inside his breast rending it.
He jumped up. To be at home, just to be at home, anywhere at home in a warm, bright room, in some relation with people. What could happen to him then? Even if they were to scold and beat him, he would not mind all that darkness and the dread of loneliness.
Unconsciously he made his way back to grandmother’s villa, and found himself standing with the cool doorbell in his hand again. Now, he observed, the lighted windows were shining through the foliage, and he pictured each room belonging to each window and the people inside. This very proximity to familiar beings, the comforting sense of being near people who, he knew, loved him was delightful,and if he hesitated it was simply to taste this joy a little longer.
Suddenly a terrified voice behind him shrieked:
“Edgar! Why, here he is!”
It was his grandmother’s maid. She pounced on him and grabbed his hand. The door was pulled open from within, a dog jumped at Edgar, barking, people came running, and voices of mingled alarm and joy called out. The first to meet Edgar was his grandmother with outstretched arms, and behind her—he thought he must be dreaming—his mother.
Tears came to Edgar’s eyes, and he stood amid this ardent outburst of emotions quivering and intimidated, undecided what to say or do and very uncertain of his own feelings. He was not sure whether he was glad or frightened.
THEYhad been looking for him in Bains for some time. His mother, in spite of her anger, had been alarmed when he did not return, and had had search made for him all over Summering. The whole place was aroused, and people were making every sort of dreadful conjecture when a man brought the news that he had seen the child at the ticket-office. Inquiry at the railroad station of course, brought out that Edgar had bought a ticket to Bains, and his mother, without hesitation, took the very next train after him, telegraphing first to his father and to his grandmother.
The family held on to Edgar, but not forcibly.On the contrary, they led him with an air of suppressed triumph into the front room. And how odd it was that he did not mind their reproaches, because he saw happiness and love in their eyes. And even their assumed anger lasted only a second or two. His grandmother was embracing him again tearfully, no one spoke of his bad conduct, and he felt the wondrousness of the protection surrounding him.
The maid took off his coat and brought him a warmer one, and his grandmother asked if he did not want something to eat. They pestered him with their inquiries and their tenderness, but stopped questioning him when they noticed how embarrassed he was. He experienced deliciously the sensation that he had so despised before of being wholly a child, and he was ashamed of his arrogance of the last few days when he had wanted to dispense with it all and exchange it for the deceptive joy of solitariness.
The telephone rang in the next room. He heard his mother’s voice in snatches, “Edgar—back. Got here—last train,” and he marvelled that she had not flown at him in a passion. She had put her arms round him, with a peculiarly constrained expression in her eyes.
He began to regret his conduct more and more, and he would have liked to extricate himself from his grandmother’s and aunt’s tenderness, to run to his mother and beg her pardon and tell her, by herself, oh, so humbly, that he wanted to be a child again and obey her. But when he rose, with a perfectly gentle movement, his grandmother asked in alarm where he was going. He felt ashamed. If he made a single step it frightened them. He had frightened them all terribly, and they were afraid he was going to run away again. How could he make them understand that nobody regretted his flight more than he did?
The table was set, supper had been prepared for him hurriedly. His grandmother sat beside him without removing her eyes from him. She and his aunt and the maid held him fast in a quiet circle, the warmth of which calmed him wonderfully, and the only disturbing thought was that of his mother’s absence from the room. If only she could have guessed how humble he was she would certainly have come in.
From outside came the sound of a cab drawing up at the door. Everyone gave a start, so that Edgar also was upset. His grandmother went out, he could hear loud voices in the hall, and then it struck him it must be his father who had arrived. He observed timidly that he had been left alone in the room. To be alone even for those few moments made him nervous. His father was a stern man; he was the one person Edgar really feared. He listened. His father seemed to be excited;his voice was loud and expressed annoyance. Every now and then came his grandmother’s and his mother’s voices in mollifying tones, in attempts, evidently, to make him adopt a milder attitude. But his father’s voice remained hard—hard as his foot-treads now coming nearer and nearer, and now stopping short at the door, which was next pulled violently open.
The boy’s father was a large man, and Edgar felt so very, very thin beside him as he entered the room, nervous and genuinely angry, it seemed.
“What got into your head to run away? How could you give your mother such a fright?” His voice was wrathful and his hands made a wild movement.
Edgar’s mother came in and stood behind her husband, her face in shadow.
Edgar made no reply. He felt he had to justify himself, but how tell the story of theway they had lied to him and how his mother had slapped him? Would his father understand?
“Well, where’s your tongue? What was the matter? You may tell me, you needn’t be afraid. You must have had some good reason for running away. Did anyone do anything to you?”
Edgar hesitated. At the recollection of the events in Summering, his anger began to flare up again, and he was about to bring his charge against his mother when he saw—his heart stood still—that she was making an odd gesture behind his father’s back. At first he did not comprehend. But he kept his eyes fixed on her and noticed that the expression of her face was beseeching. Then very, very softly she lifted her finger to her mouth in sign that he should keep everything to himself.
The child was conscious of a great wild joypouring in a warm wave over his whole body. He knew she was giving him the secret to guard and that a human destiny was hanging in the balance on his child’s lips. Filled with a jubilant pride that she reposed confidence in him he suddenly became possessed by a desire for self-sacrifice. He magnified his own wrong-doing in order to show how much of a man he had grown to be. Collecting his wits, he said:
“No, no. There was no good reason for my running away. Mamma was very kind to me, but I didn’t behave myself, and I was ashamed, and so—and so I ran away.”
The father looked at his son in amazement. Such a confession was the last thing he expected to hear. His wrath was disarmed.
“Well, if you’re sorry, then it’s all right, and we won’t say any more about it to-day. You’ll be careful in the future, though, not to do anything of the sort again.” He pausedand looked at Edgar, and his voice was milder as he went on. “How pale you are, boy! But I believe you’ve grown taller in this short while. I hope you won’t be guilty of such childish behavior again because really you’re not a child any more, and you ought to be sensible.”
Edgar, the whole time, had kept looking at his mother. Something peculiar seemed to be glowing in her eyes, or was it the reflection of the light? No, it was something new, her eyes were moist, and there was a smile on her lips that said “Thank you” to him.
They sent him to bed, but he was not now distressed at being left alone. He had such a wealth of things to think over. All the agony of the past days was dissipated by the tremendous sense of his first experience of life. He felt happy in a mysterious presentiment of future experiences. Outside, the trees were rustling in the gloomy night, but he was notscared. He had lost all impatience at having to wait for life now that he knew how rich it was. For the first time that day, it seemed to him, he had seen life naked, no longer veiled behind the thousand lies of childhood he saw it in its complete, fearful, voluptuous beauty. Never had he supposed that days could be crowded so full of transitions from sorrow to joy and back again, and it made him happy to think there were many more such days in store for him and that a whole life was waiting to reveal its mystery to him. A first inkling had come to him of the diversity of life. For the first time, he thought, he understood men’s beings, that they heeded each other even when they seemed to be inimical, and that it was very sweet to be loved by them. He was incapable of thinking of anything or anybody with hate. He regretted nothing and had a sense of gratitude even to the baron, his bitterest enemy, because it was he who hadopened the door for him to this world of dawning emotions.
It was very sweet to be lying in the dark thinking thoughts that were mingled vaguely with dreams and were lapsing almost into sleep.
Was it a dream or did Edgar really hear the door open and someone creep softly into his room? He was too sleepy to open his eyes and look. Then he felt a breath upon his face and the touch of another face, soft and warm and gentle, against his, and he knew it was his mother who was kissing him and stroking his hair. He felt her kisses and her tears, and responded to her caresses. He took them as reconciliation and gratitude for his silence. It was not until many years later that he really understood these silent tears and knew they were a vow, of this woman verging on middle age, to dedicate herself henceforth to her child and renounce adventure and alldesire on her own behalf. They were a farewell. He did not know that she was thanking him for more than his silence. She was grateful that he had rescued her from a barren experience, and in these caresses was bequeathing him the bitter-sweet legacy of her love for his future life. Nothing of all this did the child lying there comprehend, but he felt it was blissful to be so loved and that by this love he was already entangled in the great secret of the world.
When she had withdrawn her hand from his head and her lips from his lips, and with a light swish of her skirts had left the room, something warm remained behind, a breath upon Edgar’s mouth. And a seductive longing came upon him to feel such soft lips upon his and to be so tenderly embraced often and often again.
But this divination of the great secret, so longed for, was already clouded over by sleep.Once again all the happenings of the past hours flitted through Edgar’s mind, once again the leaves in the book of his childhood were turned alluringly, then the child fell asleep, and the profounder dream of his life began.