They prolonged the silence with an embarrassed smile, as though neither of them could find a way of relieving the situation.
"Go on with your work," Michael said, somewhat timidly. "Now I'm here, I don't want to be in the way."
As though seeing a challenge to her embarrassment in these words, and anxious at the same time to show her skillfulness, she bent over the bed to continue her work. Michael regained his high spirits at this display of confidence. It wasn't chivalrous to allow her to work alone: he must help her.
"You! You!" exclaimed Alicia, laughing, as though such a proposition seemed to her unthinkable.
The Prince pretended to feel hurt. Yes: he! Wasn't he a sailor, and hadn't his adventurous life compelled him to know how to do a little of everything? More than once in his explorations in the wilds, he had had to make a bed as best he could, wrapped in blankets beside the embers of a fire.
He had gone over to the other side of the bed, and was imitating all the movements of the Duchess with comic exaggeration. He petted the pillows after her, with such violence as to make the bed resound. While she lifted it slightly toward her to shake it better, he lifted it completely with his strong hands.
"You don't know how! You don't know how!" Alicia exclaimed with childish glee.
Then, seeing his fingers seize the linen with a powerful grip, she added:
"Good heavens, let go of that: You'll tear the pillow, and just now, in these hard times!"
They both laughed, finding this work very amusing.
"Take hold!" she said in authoritative tones, and flung in his face a sheet that she was holding at the opposite side.
Michael found himself wrapped in a cloud of filmy linen fragrant with feminine perfumes. It was for an instant only, but to him it seemed like something extraordinary, of limitless duration, extending beyond the bounds of time and space. He had a presentiment that this insignificant event was going to be a turning point in his life. He felt his former self suddenly awaken with fresh vigor. Perhaps it was the stimulation due to continence. He thought of Castro's ironic smile, and of himself, living like a hermit there in Villa Sirena, and preaching hostility to women! There was a buzzing in his ears; his eyes, momentarily blinded, seemed to be gazing on a vast expanse of rosy sky, the pale, luscious rose color of a woman's flesh. There was something intoxicating inthe sudden breath that caused his brain to reel, communicating the sensation to his whole organism, as violently as though struck with a lash. When the sheet had fallen back on the bed, Michael was deathly pale, with a look of intenseness gleaming in his eyes. She thought he was angry at the jest, and she laughed mischievously, leaning on the pillow with her hands. As she shook with laughter, the lace of her low-necked négligée trembled seductively on her breast and shoulders.
Suddenly the Prince found himself on the other side of the bed close to Alicia. Finally they both sat down on the edge of the bed, turning their backs on the forgotten sheet. He took one of her hands without realizing what he was doing. Then he bent so close to her face that one of her Medusa-like tresses brushed against his temple. He felt no desire to talk, but seeing her eyes, so close to his, he broke the pleasant silence.
"You have been weeping!"
The woman protested with a strained smile and grew pale as she stammered her excuses. No; perhaps it was the dust shaken up by the cleaning, or the effort of working. But he went on studying her eyes which were indeed slightly reddened.
"You were crying when I came in," he continued, with insistent and troubled curiosity.
Now Alicia's protest took the form of a harsh, shrill laugh, that was decidedly forced and unnatural. And by one of those modulations of which only great actors know the secret, the burst of her laughter died gradually into a sigh, then a groan, until, letting go the Prince's hand, she covered her eyes, and hung her head, while a fit of sobbing shook her whole body.
She was crying. It was enough that Michael should have discovered her recent weeping to cause the tearsto rise in her eyes again, renewing her former anguish. She gave in to her grief with a sort of cruel delight, finding it preferable to the torture of feigning, which his unexpected visit had imposed.
The Prince remained silent for a few moments.
"Is it for that young fellow of yours?" he plucked up courage to ask, with a shaking voice as though he too were undergoing an unexplainable emotion.
She replied with a slight movement of her head, without taking her hands from her eyes. It was unnecessary for Michael to see them. He had guessed the truth on discovering the traces of tears. It could be only for him that she was weeping: the lack of news; the worry of thinking that he was a prisoner, far off, suffering all sorts of privations; and that perhaps she would never see him again.
"How you love him!"
The Prince was surprised himself at the tone of voice in which he said these words. There was a note of despair, envy, and sadness at the thought of the passing years, bequeathing to the coming generation the haughty privileges of youth.
The guests at Villa Sirena would also have been astonished to hear him talk in this fashion. Alicia's surprise caused her to forget all precaution as a pretty woman, and lift her head, as she took away her hands. Her face was red, her eyes tremulous and overflowing. A tear hung from a lock of hair. She realized that she must be looking terrible, but what did she care?
"Yes, I love him; I love him more than anything in the world. It is on his account that I go on living. If it weren't for him I would kill myself. But he isn't what you think. No, he isn't."
With her face so reddened with weeping, it was impossible to detect a blush; but her gestures, the expressionof her face and the tone of her voice, rebelled with shame and indignation against the suspicion of the Prince.
She went on talking in a low voice, without daring to look at him, hurrying her words like a penitent anxious to get through with a difficult confession as soon as possible. On various occasions in talking with the Prince, the truth had come to her lips, and at the last moment the reticence of a woman still desirous of pleasing through her beauty had caused her to conceal the facts. But to whom could she reveal her secret better than to Michael? She considered him one of the family: he had received her in friendly fashion in her hour of need, when so many men had turned their backs on her. Besides, between a man and a woman, love is not the only feeling that can exist, as she had thought in the days of her mad youth. There were other less violent things, more placid and lasting: friendship, comradeship, and brotherly affection.
She paused for a moment, as though to gather strength.
"He is my son."
Michael, who was expecting some extraordinary, some monstrous revelation, worthy of her mad past, was unable to restrain an exclamation of astonishment:
"Your son!"
She nodded: "Yes, my son." With lowered eyes, she went on talking in the same nervous tone, as though she were making a confession. She went back over her past. How surprised she had been, how angry, at the cruel trick love had played in cutting off the best years of her life! Her indignation was like that of the citizens of Ancient Greece who began a riot when they learned of the pregnancy of a courtezan who was considered a national glory, a beauty whom the multitude came from afar to see, when she showed herself nude in the religious festivals. They were bent on killing her unborn child, asthough it had been guilty of a sacrilege. Alicia, too, used to consider herself a living work of art, and wanted to punish the sacrilege of her child with death. What criminal attempts she had made to rid herself of the shame that was throbbing in her vitals! Besides, what tortures she had undergone in her efforts to hide it, to go on leading her life of pleasure as before, and suffer anything rather than permit her secret to escape! Returning from parties where she had seen herself admired as formerly yet always with the dread that her secret had been discovered, she would fall into fits of homicidal rage and rebelliously curse the being that persisted in living within her; and in paroxysms of wild hysteria she would devise ways and means of encompassing its destruction.
There were tears in her voice as she recalled these scenes.
"But how about your husband?" Michael asked.
"We separated at that time. He could tolerate my love affairs in silence: he could pretend not to know about them ... but a child that wasn't his own...!"
She recalled the attitude of the Duke de Delille. He had shown a dignity worthy of him. There had been many deceived husbands in his family: it had almost become a tradition of nobility, an historic distinction. He did not feel dishonored by selling his name in getting married in order to increase the pleasures and comforts of his life. His name that belonged to him was a tool to work with. But it was impossible for him to let that name get out of his family, to give it to an intruder to continue the line. His forefathers had had many illegitimate children; but it had never occurred to any of his gay women ancestors to introduce into the family descendants in whose creation their husbands could assume no responsibility whatever.
The Duke had separated from her, granting all her demandssave that one. It was an adulterous son and it must disappear. And no one, except they two and the maid—who was still with her—were to know of the birth.
"There were times when I was quite happy," Alicia continued. "I learned to know new unsuspected joys. I would suddenly leave Paris: lots of people thought I was traveling with some new lover. No; I was going to see my little boy, my George; first in London, later in New York, but always in a large city. I could live with him, and play at being a mother, with a living doll that kept getting bigger and bigger ... bigger! Do you remember the night I invited you to dinner? I had just come back from one of those trips, and in spite of that, just think of the foolish things I said. I imagined myself Venus, or Helen, passing before the old men on the wall. And in order to give myself up completely to a paroxysm of maternal pride I was thinking of my heroines, who were also my rivals. Helen had had children, and men went on killing one another for her. Venus had not escaped maternity, and gods and mortals continued to adore her in spite of the fact that she had a son fluttering about the world. Maternity meant neither abdication of rights nor loss of prestige; she could go on being beautiful and being desired, like other women, after an incident that had seemed to her irremediable. So I went on living my life. Oh, when I think of how I sometimes shortened the time that I had intended to stay with him, in order to follow some man that scarcely interested me! Now that I haven't him, I think of the hours that I might have lived by his side, and that were given up to the first male that aroused my curiosity! It's my most terrible remorse; it gnaws at my conscience all night long, and drives me to gambling as the only remedy. I am certainly to be pitied, Michael."
But a fixed idea seemed to dominate Michael as he listened to her.
"And the father? Who is the father?"
The tone of his voice was practically the same as before: a tone of hostile curiosity, of aggressive spite.
Another wave of astonishment swept over him when he saw that she was shrugging her shoulders.
"I don't know; it doesn't make any difference to me. Other women, in like circumstances, fasten the paternity on the man they are most interested in. As though you could tell! I haven't picked out any one in particular from among my memories. They are all the same. I have forgotten them all. My son is mine, mine only."
She had the majestic indifference of the serene and fertile forest that opens its blossoms to the pollen scattered through the air like a golden rain of love. The new plant springs up. It belongs to the forest, and the forest keeps it, without showing any interest in learning the name and origin of the wandering source of life borne hither willy-nilly on the wind.
There was a long silence.
"One day, on arriving in New York," she continued, "I made a terrible discovery. I found my George almost as tall as I was, and strong looking, with the serious air of a grown man, though he wasn't quite eleven. I'm ashamed to think it; but I mustn't lie: I hated him. Venus might have a son, as long as the son remained eternally a little child through all the centuries, like one of those amusing babies that are dressed in a whimsical fashion, and are the mother's pride and amusement. But my own son, with his powerful body, his strong hands, and solemn face! It meant that I should grow old before my time; I should have to renounce my youth if I kept him by my side! I could never resign myself to declaringthat I was his mother. And I fled from him, letting a number of years go by, without paying attention to anything in regard to him, excepting to send the means for his complete education. Oh, when I think how fate has punished me for my selfishness!"
She remained silent for a few moments to dry the fresh tears that were reddening her eyes and giving her voice a husky resonance.
"He came to Paris when I was least expecting him. The venerable friend who was looking after his education there in America, had died. I found a man, a grown man, in spite of the fact that he wasn't over sixteen. My first feeling was one of annoyance, almost anger. I should have to say farewell to youth, and change my mode of life on account of this intruder. But there was something in me that kept me from doing anything so heartless as to send him back to a foreign country, or off to a boarding school in Paris. I grew accustomed to him at once. I had to have him in my house. It seemed as though, when I was near him, I felt a certain serenity, a deep quiet joy that I never thought myself capable of feeling. You don't know what it means, Michael. You could never understand, no matter how much I tried to explain it to you. I swear it was the happiest time in my life. There is no love like that. Besides, we were such good comrades! I suddenly felt as though I were a girl of his age again; no, younger than he. George used to give me advice. He was so wise for a boy of his age; and I used to do what he said like a younger sister. He let his mother drag him along and introduce him to a world of pleasure and luxury that dazzled him, after his sober, athletic life with a stern educator. And I leaned proudly on his arm, and laughed at the false ideas people had of our actual relation. How we used to dance, the year before the war, without any one suspecting the truenature of the affection that bound me to my partner!"
Alicia paused to linger on these delightful memories. She smiled with a far-away look in her eyes, as she thought of the malicious error people had made.
"Every tango-tea in the Champs-Élysées found the Duchess de Delille dancing with her latest crush! And, Michael, as for me, I was proud that they should be making such a mistake. I went on being the beautiful Alicia, restored to youth by the fidelity of an adolescent who accompanied her everywhere, with all the enthusiasm of a first love. This seemed to me a much better rôle than that of the passively resigned mother. Besides, what fun we used to have laughing and talking it over afterwards when we were by ourselves! Many of my former lovers felt their old passion revive again out of a sort of unconscious envy—the instinctive rivalry that the man of ripe years feels toward youth—and they began besieging me with their gallantries again. George used to threaten me in fun: 'Mamma, I'm jealous!' He didn't want any other man to be showing attentions to his mother, so that she might belong to him completely. On other occasions I myself had better reasons to protest. I surprised a greedy look in the eyes of many women of my own class when they gazed at him—some with a boldly inviting look, since, being younger, they felt they had a right to take him away from me. And he was so good! He used to joke with me about these passions that he inspired; and tell me about others that I had not been able to guess! You don't know what young people are like nowadays, in the generation that has followed us. They seem to be made of different flesh and blood. Our generation was the last to take love seriously; to give tremendous importance to it, and make it the chief occupation of our lives. Now they don't understand people like you and me: we seem monstrous to them. My son is onlyinterested in one woman: his mother; and in addition to her, automobiles, aeroplanes, and sports. All these strong, innocent boys seemed to have guessed what was awaiting them...."
As she spoke, the momentary serenity with which she had related this happy period in her life gradually vanished. She went on talking in a subdued voice, choked from time to time by sobs.
Suddenly war had come. Who could have imagined it a month before? And her son was ashamed not to be one of the men who were hurrying to the railroad stations to join a regiment. One morning he had overwhelmed her with the announcement of his enlistment as a volunteer. What could she do? Legally she was not his mother. George bore the name of a pair of old married servants who had been willing to play that game of deception by posing as his parents. Besides, he was born in France, and it was not extraordinary that he, like so many other youths, should have wanted to defend his country before he was called to arms by law.
The Duchess lived for a few months in a tiny village in the south of France, near the Aviation Camp where her son was in training. She wanted to be with him just as long as she possibly could. If only he had become a soldier at the time when she was living separated from him, and was concealing her actual relation to him! But she was going to lose him at the sweetest moment of her life, when she was beginning to think she might be at George's side forever.
"It did not take him long to become a pilot. How I hated the ease with which he learned to manage his machine! His progress filled me with pride and anger. Those young fellows are regular fanatics so far as aviation is concerned. It is something that has come into existence in their time, and they have seen it grow beforetheir school-boy eyes. He went away, and since then I have been more dead than alive. Three years, Michael, three years of torture! I've paid dearly for all my past life! Though the mistakes that I made were great, I've made up for them, and more too. You may well have compassion on me. You can have no idea what I'm suffering."
The first year that Alicia had spent alone, she had lived in constant expectation of his letters, which arrived irregularly from the front. Her joys were few and far between. George had come to Paris only once on leave, and had spent half a week with her. At long intervals she also received visits from the aviator's comrades, greeting the news they brought with tears and smiles. Her son had received the War Cross after an air battle. His mother had cut out the short newspaper paragraph referring to this event, sticking it with two pins on the silk with which her bedroom was hung. She would spend hours staring as though hypnotized at these brief lines: "Bachellery, Georges, aviator, gave chase to two enemy planes beyond our lines and ..."
This "Bachellery, Georges" was her son! It made no difference to her that other people were not aware of the fact. Her pride seemed to grow because of the mystery surrounding it. The handsome strapping fellow, strong, and innocent as the heroes of ancient legend, had been formed in her body. All the men whom she had known in her past life seemed more and more petty and ugly; they were inferior beings, sprung from another race of humanity, the existence of which should be forgotten.
Suddenly a stupid, unforeseen accident plunged her into the darkness of despair. One beautiful morning with the joyous confidence of a young knight setting forth in quest of adventure, the aviator started out in his pursuit machine, rising through the silvery clouds in search of theenemy. Suddenly, he noticed some slight motor trouble—due to the negligence of the mechanics in getting it ready, a matter of slight importance under ordinary circumstances ... and he was forced to descend, absolutely unable to continue his flight, and the wind and bad luck caused him to land within the German lines.
"A hundred yards this side, and he would have landed among his own men.... What can you expect? I was too happy. I had still to learn what misery really means! I confess that at the very first I was almost glad, with the selfish gladness of a mother. A prisoner! It meant that his life would be safe; he wouldn't be killed in an air battle; he was no longer in danger of being crushed to pieces or burned to death under his broken machine. But later on!..."
Later this security, that placed her son outside the limit of actual war, became a source of torture. She envied herself the times when he used to go out each day and face death, but still remained free. The newspapers talked about the suffering of the prisoners, their being herded together in vast unsanitary sheds, and the hunger from which they were suffering. The life of ease and comfort which the mother was leading was a constant source of remorse. When she sat down at table, or looked at her soft bed, or noticed the warm caress of a fire, and saw that the window panes were covered with the traceries of frost, she felt she was usurping in a shameless manner something that belonged to another person. Her boy, her poor boy, was living like a stray dog, lying on the straw, with hunger gnawing at his stomach! She had produced a human being—she, a miserable woman, who for so many years had believed herself the center of the universe, was enjoying all kinds of luxuries—and this flesh of her flesh was agonizing under the tortures of want such as are felt only by the most povertystricken.... She never could have dreamed that such an irony of fate would be reserved for her.
During the first few months she scurried wildly about, with the fierce irrational love of the female animal that sees her young in danger. She went from one government bureau to the other, taking advantage of all her social connections! But there were so many mothers! They were not going to open diplomatic negotiations for a woman in her position.... Every day she sent large packages of food to the offices that had charge of prisoners' relief. They finally refused to accept them. The entire service could not take up all its time doing nothing but send aid to a mere protégé of the Duchess de Delille. There were thousands and thousands of men in the same situation as he. And she could not cry out: "He is my son!" A scandalous revelation like that would not help matters. She kept on sending the packages regularly even if they did not go to her George. They would be used to satisfy some one's hunger. She felt the magnanimity roused by great sorrow; she made her offerings like a mother who, in praying for her child when all hope has been given up, prays for other sick children also, feeling that through her generosity her prayers may be heeded.
Besides, the suspense was cruel. When the clerks took her packages, they smiled sadly. She was practically certain that her shipments of food were being appropriated by the guards. All the expensive eatables intended for her son were doubtless used by the old German reservists in charge of guarding the prisoners, to have a joyous feast, with the greedy merriment of fierce mastiffs, toasting to the glory of the Kaiser and the triumph of their race over the entire world! Good God! What could she do?
At long intervals, after tremendous delays, she would finally get a postcard passed by the German censor.There would be four lines, nothing more, written as children write at school, under the eye of the teacher standing at their backs. But the writing was George's. "In good health. We're not badly treated. Send me eatables." She would spend long hours gazing at these timid, deceiving lines. For her they acquired a new meaning. They told something else: the truth, namely. She recalled the stories of dying captives who had come from those torture camps, and the lines seemed to stammer with groans of a sick child: "Mamma ... hungry. I'm hungry!"
There were times when she thought she would go mad. Everything about her brought to memory the image of her George, well groomed, and cared for by her with such fond and exaggerated attention. She had looked after his clothes, taking an interest in the respective merits of his tailors. She had had to endure his masculine protests when she had tried to provide him with underwear of fine silk like her own. In the morning she used to go and surprise him, as he lay in bed, like a little child, and kiss her own flesh and blood, metamorphosed into an athlete. Everything seemed to her too mean and poor for that strong fellow, handsome as a god of old. She looked after his bed, his dresser, and his person with all the passionate fondness of a sweetheart. She inspected his pockets in order continually to renew her gifts of money. Her Mexican mines were his, and so were the frontier lands, and everything she possessed. And later on—she hated to think when—she would see him married to some one after her own heart. Then his obscure birth was to be glorified by the splendor of enormous wealth. But suddenly the world, losing its balance, had been plunged into a furious madness, and this Prince of Fate, whose mother, in conference with the chef, had invented gastronomic surprises for him alone, was cryingfrom some far off snow-swept plain in the icy north:
"Mother ... hungry. I'm hungry!"
"I went to Switzerland three times, Michael. I even proposed that in Paris they should provide me with means of getting into Germany, offering to go as a spy. But they laughed at me; and they were right! What was I going to spy out? My son, of course ... what I wanted to do in Germany was to see my son. In Switzerland I met two crippled soldiers who had just been exchanged, and came from the camp where George was. They knew the aviator Bachellery. He had tried to escape five times. He enjoyed a certain fame among his companions in misery for the haughtiness with which he faced the cruelest guards. The latest news was uncertain. They had not seen him lately. They thought that he was then in another prison camp, a punishment camp, farther inland, near the Polish frontier, where the refractory and dangerous prisoners were forced to undergo a cruel disciplinary régime, and suffer terrible punishments."
Her voice trembled with anger as she said this. She could see her son dragging a chain, and being whipped like a slave. Oh, if she were only a man, and could be left alone for a moment with that tragi-comedian with the upturned mustache who had made many millions of women groan with sorrow!
"And to think that there have been fanatics who have killed good or insignificant kings! And not one of them has lifted a hand to do away with the Kaiser! Don't talk to me about anarchists. They are idiots! I don't believe in them."
This outburst of wrath vanished immediately. Once more grief and despair tore a sob from her. She remembered a photograph she had seen in one of the newspapers: the torture called "the post," applied by the Germans in their punishment camps; a Frenchman in a tattereduniform, fastened to a wooden stake, as though it were a cross, on an open snow-covered plain, suffering for hours and hours from the deadly cold. It was the death penalty, hypocritically applied, with savage refinements of torture. It was impossible to distinguish the features of the poor fellow suffering like Christ, with his head falling on his breast. Even if it wasn't George, surely he had also suffered the same torture.
"How can I live in such endless anguish! They wouldn't let me go back to Switzerland. They held up my passports. I don't know what's happened to him. There are times when it seems as though my head would burst. That's why I avoid living alone. That's why I gamble, and have to see people, and talk, and get away from my thoughts. Since then I've only received one postcard from my son, without any date, and without any indication as to where he is. It says about the same as the other one. The writing is his, and nevertheless it seems to be in another hand. Oh, what that writing says! I see him like the other man, like the poor fellow fastened to the post covered with rags, as thin as a skeleton.... My son!"
Michael was obliged to take both her hands in a strong grip, and draw them towards him, holding her up, to keep her from falling on the bed in hysterical convulsions. He was sorry that he had come, and, by his curiosity, invited a confession that aroused the woman's grief.
As for her, she looked at him with wide-open staring eyes, without seeing him. Finally, concentrating with an effort, she noticed Michael's emotion. This calmed her somewhat.
"You can be glad you don't know what such torture is like. There's no end to it: there's no help for it. When I think of him, I feel as though I were going to die. Not to know about him! Not to be able to do anything! Iought really to find some diversion and learn to think of something else. One must live: one can't be always weeping. But whenever I succeed in getting interested in anything, I immediately feel remorse. I call myself names: 'You're a bad mother, to forget your sorrows.' A day seldom passes that I eat without crying. I'm tormented by the thought that he would be happy with what is left from my table, with what the servants eat, or perhaps with what they give to the dog! And when Valeria and Clorinda see my tears, they can't explain such constant grief. They don't know my secret. They think like every one else, that it's simply a question of a mere protégé or a young lover. They can't understand such despair over a mere man. That's why I gamble so much. It's the only thing that really keeps my mind occupied, and makes me forget for a time; it's my anæsthetic. Before, I used to play just for the excitement, for the pleasure of struggling with fate; and because I was flattered by the amazement of the curiosity seekers who watched me stake enormous sums with indifference. Now it's on his account—and for no other reason."
Alicia's mind reverted to her financial difficulties. As a matter of fact, her fortune had been seriously impaired some years earlier, but she had always had hopes of some sudden recuperation. Besides, the period before the war had been the happiest time of her life. She had her son and she lived her life, without any thought of business matters. Later her financial ruin had come along with the loss of George.
"If only I had the wealth I used to have! I know the power of money. I could have moved men and even governments. I would have written to the Kaiser, or to Hindenburg, sending them a million, two million, or any amount they asked. 'Now that you are reëstablishing slavery and pillaging towns, here is money for you. Giveme back my son.' And now I would have him back at my side. But I'm poor! If you knew how I love money now, just for his sake! I dream of winning big stakes, five hundred thousand francs or maybe a million, in two or three days. How happy I am when I come back from the Casino with a few thousand francs to the good! 'It's to send my poor boy a box with something good to eat,' I say to myself. Then I write to the stores, or go there myself, keeping in mind the things he liked best. You are rich and don't understand how hard it is to get along now, how scarce things are getting, and how much they cost! I didn't have any idea of such things before, either. And I send him boxes of the nicest things; and I feel proud that in my mind I can say to him: 'It's with the money mamma won for you ... it's with my work!' Don't smile, Michael. That's what it is—work! Besides, what else could I work at? The one thing that worries me is how to address these shipments. 'For the Aviator Bachellery, prisoner in Germany.' That's all I know, and there are so many prisoners! Almost all my shipments must be lost; but some at least will reach him. Don't you think he'll get some of them?"
The Prince greeted this anxious question with a vague gesture of agreement. "Yes;—perhaps, almost certainly!"
Immediately Alicia showed a certain reassurance. Eight months had gone by without her hearing anything about him; but other mothers were in the same situation. There was no use despairing. Men who had been given up for dead in the early battles of the war were returning home after a long period of captivity. Besides, did it seem reasonable to believe that a son of hers was going to die of hunger and want, like a beggar?
Lubimoff again nodded assent. "Really, it didn't seem reasonable!"
"There are moments," she said, "when I feel an unexplainablejoy, a mysterious intuition, that I'm going to receive good news,—the feeling I have on the days when I go to the Casino sure of winning,—and do win. I wrote to the King of Spain, who is interested in ascertaining the fate of prisoners, and who often succeeds in getting them sent back to their homes. I have had a great number of friends write to him. If he could only give me back my George! At least I expect to learn good news; to find out where he is, and convince myself that he is alive. I would be satisfied if they interned him in Switzerland, the way they do with the seriously wounded, and I would go and live with him. How happy I would be if he were in Lausanne or Vevey, beside the lake, like my husband!"
There was a sad, kindly smile on her face as she thought of the Duke.
"Oh, I haven't forgotten him, I assure you. Everything that's left over from George's boxes, I send to him by way of Geneva. 'For Lieutenant-Colonel de Delille.' Oh, it reacheshim, without any difficulty! Poor fellow! His answers are almost love letters. I send him sausages and canned things, in memory of the twenty louis bouquets he used to send me when he was courting me. What are we coming to, Michael! Who could ever have imagined that everything and everybody would be so topsy-turvy!"
Already she was talking more calmly, as though the memory of her son was no longer in the foreground of her thoughts.
"Everything seems to tell me I'm going to get good news. Misfortune can't last so very much longer. Doesn't it seem that way to you? It's like bad luck in play: it finally goes away. The main thing is to save your strength in order to resist it. I ought to feel satisfied. I was so excited I could hardly sleep last night. I wentabove the thirty; you know: the thirty thousand francs that used to be the limit of my luck. Last night I won eighty thousand. Your friend Lewis was furious. He says it takes a woman to do a thing like that: to win, playing haphazard, defying all the rules."
From the look on the Prince's face she guessed his surprise at her merriment following so closely on her recent tears.
"I can't stay by myself. I have such memories! Perhaps you heard me singing, as you came up-stairs. It's an English song my son used to sing. In the morning I used to go and listen at his door like a sweetheart who, while waiting for him to appear, is glad to hear the voice of the man she loves. Whenever I'm alone I sing it over mechanically; I try to imagine it is George singing, and my eyes fill with tears, but with tears of tenderness that are very sweet. While I was making the bed it seemed as though I heard him, going back and forth in his bedroom, with me waiting and listening in the hall. My voice was his voice. That was why I fairly trembled when you came in. For a moment I supposed you were he. How wonderful it will be when I see him!... I'm sure I shall see him. Misfortune can't last forever. Don't you think I'll see him?"
Her closed eyes seemed to smile on a far-off vision of hope. And Michael, who had remained silent for a long time, spoke to give her encouragement. Poor woman! Yes; she would see her son. At his age a man can stand any hardship. He would return; they would both be happy once more, talking over their present troubles, as though it had all been a bad dream.
"Besides, I will help you. We must get busy and take steps to have your son returned to you. I shall write to the King of Spain. I knew him. He had lunch on my yacht once when I was in San Sebastian. I have friendsin Paris, men in politics, and diplomats; I shall write to all of them. And if worse comes to worst, and there's no other way out of it, I shall try through the medium of some neutral government to get a letter through to Wilhelm II. Perhaps he may pay some attention to me. He must remember me, and his visit to my boat."
Now it was her turn to look at him fixedly through a mist of tears, smiling, at the same time, to express her gratitude.
"How kind you are!" she exclaimed after a long silence. "The day when I was in Villa Sirena for the first time I was convinced that I had made a great mistake. How little we knew each other! We needed adversity to see each other as we really are. First you offered to relieve my poverty, and now you are going to try to get me back my son!"
She let herself be carried away by an impulse of affection. Michael saw her bend her head, and suddenly felt the contact of her lips on his hand. He heard two loud kisses and a voice whispering: "Thanks ... thanks." The Prince rose to his feet. He could not tolerate such expression of humility. But at the same time she too stood up; their eyes were on a level. As though desiring to complete the recent caress, she took his head impulsively in her hands, and kissed him on the brow.
A sudden wave of human fragrance, like that which had enveloped him when the sheet had been thrown on his face, once more stirred the depths of his being. He realized that the caress meant nothing: that it was merely a kiss of gratitude, a sudden outburst of feeling on the part of a mother expressing her emotion with unusual impetuousness. In spite of this, he felt himself dominated by passion, cruel and at the same time voluptuous, causing him to reach out his arms to master and embracewhat he held within reach.... But his hands touched empty space.
Repenting her act, she had stepped back, retreating a few steps. She was standing in the doorway, ready to continue her flight, mechanically straightening her hair, and drying her tears, as a deep blush spread over her features.
"I didn't know what I was doing!" she murmured. "Forgive me. I was so grateful to learn that you wanted to help me!"
At the same time she pointed to the balcony. Below, in the garden, the voice of the gardener could be heard telling his dog to stop that barking all the time at the foot of the stairs, as though a thief were inside the villa.
"Let us go," she commanded gravely. "The servants will soon be coming back from mass. I shouldn't like to have them find us here in my bedroom. They might think...."
Calming down, Lubimoff noted the unconscious modesty, and the evident uneasiness with which she said this. He suddenly recalled the woman of the "study" on the Avenue du Bois, and her daring theories. Was it really the same person?
As they went downstairs she turned her head to talk to him, as though she had read his thoughts.
"You must be amused at me. What a change from the Alicia of former times! I'm not so bad as I seem, that much is certain, isn't it? Tell me you don't think I'm so bad; tell me you think I'm only mad; mad, and always unlucky."
She opened the rooms downstairs to show how orderly they looked, but the chill of the deserted drawing room, the covers on the furniture, and the musty odor, like that of a damp cellar, prompted them to go out into the garden and, like two people prolonging their farewell,continue their conversation at the foot of the stairway.
The elderly maid of the Duchess, and the gardener's wife who looked after the cooking, passed them repeatedly on various pretexts. They bowed to the gentleman, with a look of adoration and a pleasant smile. They seemed to be saying to themselves: "That nice fellow is Prince Lubimoff, the one that's so much talked about." They had often heard his name in Villa Rosa, and they both venerated him as a providential being who could restore the vanished days of abundance with a mere wave of the hand.
Michael thought it best not to prolong his visit.
"Come and see me," she said in a low voice, as she accompanied him out to the gate. "Now you know everything. You're the only one who does. It will seem very sweet to me to talk with you, and have you console and help me."
The Prince spent the next few hours, pensive and silent. So many new things had come up all at once! First there had been the revelation of a son, whose existence he never could have imagined; next, the untamable creature of love changed into a mother; her tears, her silent suffering, which she was bearing, like a convict's chain, in expiation of her mad past. And the crowning surprise of all had been what he had felt within himself, the resurrection of his former being, his new surrender to the domination of the flesh, and the double lashing his nervous system had received in breathing the perfume of the soft linen and feeling the imprint of her lips on his brow.
This latter he wished to forget, and to succeed in doing so he concentrated all his attention on the revelations she had made, and on her maternal sorrows. Poor Alicia! Finding her impoverished and tearful, with no other help than that which he might give, he began to feel alasting affection for her. It was the affection of the strong for the weak; a paternal love which did not take into account the similarity in their ages, nor the difference of sex; a tenderness made up for the most part of a certain sweet pity. He was moved by the memory of the humble kiss with which she had caressed his hands. It was the kiss, almost of a beggar. Unhappy woman! This was enough to make him feel obliged never to abandon her.
Alicia's pride, her desire to dominate, had formerly irritated him. Accustomed to protecting women generously without ever submitting to their will, considering them in the light of something agreeable and inferior, he could not compromise with her haughty character. They were both people too strong and domineering to be able to tolerate each other. But now everything was changed.
He remembered her as he had seen her in the bedroom, sorrowful, weeping, with pearls hanging from the corners of her eyes, which were tragically beautiful, as in the images of the Virgin, where Mary is holding the body of the crucified Christ on her knees.Mater Dolorosa!
But there seemed to be another person within the Prince protesting with cold, clear-sightedness against this image. No, she was not the Mother of Sorrows. A mother never abandons her son. She renounces all of the vanities of this world for him. She gives up her present and her future, as though she had no other life than that of her son, part of her own flesh. At all hours she gives him the milk of her breast. Moment by moment she follows his development, fighting with illness, laughing at danger. To love him she does not have to wait for him to grow to the full splendor of adolescence. Whereas she...!
She was theVenus Dolorosa. Even in the moments of deepest despair she maintained her beauty, and hergrief seemed a new means of seduction. She was a mother; but she continued to be a woman, that terrible, destructive woman whom the Prince had always hated. Look out, Michael!
But with a smile of superiority he replied inwardly to this reflection.
"Perhaps I am going to fall in love with her," he said to himself. "I am fond of her as I never thought I could be, but only as a friend, a companion worthy of pity, one whom I ought to protect."
At lunch time Spadoni did not turn up at Villa Sirena. Atilio had seen him at the Casino with some English friends from Nice. They were probably lunching together at the Hôtel de Paris to work out some new system or other. The last thing they had tried was for the four of them to play at different tables, but with the same system of combinations, a device that the pianist boasted would prove infallible.
After they had had their coffee, all the guests of the luxurious villa seemed possessed by the same restlessness, which would not let them sit still.
Castro was the first one to leave, announcing that he was going to the Casino. He had a feeling that it was going to be a "great evening." He had had his eyes on acroupierwho started work at half-past three. He knew this man's style of starting the ball. Everycroupierhas his own mannerisms. Some do it with a long sweep, and others with a short jerky motion of the arm. This particular one made it fall most frequently in seventeen, and that was Castro's number.
Novoa was the next to go, but he was less frank about it. He stammered blushingly as he said good-by to the Prince. Perhaps he would spend the afternoon with some friends from Monaco. Perhaps he would take a short trip on the Nice road as far as Cap d'Ail or Beaulieu.His was the embarrassment of a man who does not know how to lie.
The Prince was left alone. He looked at the sea for a while. Then he changed windows, and gazed at the gardens. He pressed a button to call Don Marcos. He did not know what he was going to say to him but he felt he must see him in order not to remain alone. One of the old women servants appeared, and announced that the Colonel had gone to Monte Carlo.
"He, too," the Prince said to himself.
In order to escape the tediousness of spending a Sunday afternoon alone, he took his hat and overcoat. Some power beyond his comprehension was impelling him toward the neighboring city. Turning away from the villa, he walked through the gardens.
The edifice, thus deserted, appeared larger, and its frowning and angry silence seemed to be asking him why anybody had ever been such a fool as to waste so much money and material on a box like that.
Along the nearby road, street cars and carriages were gliding, filled with city people who were coming out for a glimpse of the smiling sea, or of a group of pines, or to find a height that might afford a panoramic view.
And he, the owner of the famous gardens of Villa Sirena, was deserting all this beauty to go to a city from which others were trying to escape.
Lubimoff recalled the splendid scheme of life he had worked out a few months before: a community of lay brethren shut off from the world in a spot like paradise: music, astronomy, pleasant conversations, wholesome work. And now the monks were running away on all sorts of pretexts, and he, who was their prior, also was feeling an unexplainable impulse to follow their example. Even Toledo, the faithful admirer of that estate which he had considered the best work of his life, seemedto be suffering from the same feverish desire to get away.
Near the gate he turned to contemplate his beautiful domain as if to beg its pardon. There was a silence like that surrounding an enchanted palace. The gardens seemed asleep like dream woods.
He thought he saw at the end of a long avenue a flutter of two large birds. It was Estola and Pistola, in afternoon coats too long for them, running toward the end of the promontory. It was as though Villa Sirena had been constructed for them. They could play with the active joy of youth in these gardens, to the envy of those who lingered at the gate out of curiosity. As they ran along they were free to trample on rare plants brought from the other side of the globe; free to jump from rock to rock in search of the little fishes left by the waves in miniature lakes in the hollows of the rock, until their coat tails were wet and their shoes full of holes—to the despair of the Colonel, who made the servants pass in review before him every day.
Michael preferred not to ask himself where he was going. He surely had some end in view when he started his walk, but he felt it a nuisance to think about it. Suddenly he saw two currents of people coming from opposite directions, meeting and mingling, as they both mounted a short winding stairway which was divided by two hand-rails, and was covered by three red carpets.
He was in front of the Casino. On one side, were arriving the people who had just come by train, on the other, those who had been gathered in by all the street cars from the towns on the Riviera between Nice and Monte Carlo.
That evening a celebrated Italian tenor was singing, and many of the people, forgetting their game for the moment, were gathering in the theater.
Lubimoff found himself immediately attended by twosolemn gentlemen in frock coats with black ties and their heads bare. They were two inspectors from the Casino.
"We are very sorry, Prince, but everything is full. There are people even in the aisles."
But since it was he, one of the two men accompanied him as far as the box belonging to the Prime Minister of Monaco. The man who governed for the Sovereign Prince recognized him and was anxious to give him the best seat, but Michael, disliking public curiosity, preferred to remain in the second row.
It was a theater without any balconies. The auditorium was wider than it was deep. The rows of comfortable seats were all alike and all sold at the same price. The stage was used for concerts and, on rare occasions, for plays and operas.
The architect who had built the Paris Opera House had repeated the same dazzling display in this hall. There were gold ornaments on every side, elaborate moldings, caryatids and immense mirrors. There was not a hand's breadth of the wall without its gilded stucco, raised in bold relief.
In the hall at the rear above the seats that rose at a decided angle, were five boxes, the only ones there were.
They were reserved for the Sovereign Prince and his high officials.
While listening to the singing, Michael examined the crowded mass of people, as well as he could, from his seat. He recognized many as he gazed over their heads.
Toward the front he distinguished a man with gray hair that was parted from the forehead to the nape of the neck, and brushed forward mingling with his side whiskers, in an Austrian fashion. It was the Colonel, who was listening with a certain air of authority, swaying his head to show his approbation of the celebrated tenor. But he was not alone. The Prince saw him bendtoward a girl with curly hair and a string of large amber beads. Oh, the traitor!
There was no doubt about it. It must have been the gardener's daughter. That was why he had fled in such a hurry. The milliner's apprentice had insisted. She was anxious to hear the singer she had heard the ladies talk so much about.
When the huge nightingale had retired to the wings, the Colonel offered his protégée a cornucopia full of caramels. Caramels in wartime! An extravagance, indeed, that only a lover could allow himself.
In the intermission, the Prince slipped away, for fear that he might meet Don Marcos and spoil his aide's pleasant afternoon by his presence. Besides, he was not interested in the opera or in the highly praised artist.
He crossed the large ante-room with its columns of jasper supporting a gallery with balusters surmounted by bronze candelabras. At one end of the room the latest news was posted on panels. The Prince read it without any curiosity.
Nothing new. The same as ever. The monotonous trench warfare was continuing. Ground gained and lost by the yard. There would be no end to it.
He slipped out between the groups of people during the intermission, taking care that the Colonel should not see him.
Poor Don Marcos! He was walking along gravely and proudly by the side of his protégée, who might have been his granddaughter. He glanced with hostility at all the young men, while behind his back, she made eyes at every passing uniform.
The Prince was obliged to force his way through a motionless compact group made up of wounded officers. French, Canadians, Australians, and Englishmen. Mingled with them were nurses of various types—some with nunlikeveils and with a delicate appearance; others with a masculine look, having neckties and uniforms with gold buttons, without any feminine apparel except their skirts. Some who were older and had short hair, red faces, and large shell spectacles had to be examined closely before one could be convinced, from their hybrid appearance, that they were women. They crowded together in front of the three double curtains leading to the gambling rooms. Those who belonged in any way to the army or navy of any nation whatsoever were not allowed to pass this limit. Soldiers could enter only the theater and the ante-room of the Casino. And those people who in their far-off countries had often heard of Monte Carlo, finding themselves there by chance of war, were crowding at the curtains with childish curiosity, admiring, for an instant, as the draperies rapidly opened and closed, the vision of gilded rooms, all in a row and filled with people. Afterwards they would withdraw, giving up their places to other comrades. At last they had seen it! Now they could say they knew all about Monte Carlo!
The employees in their black frock coats opened one of the curtains, greeting the Prince as though he were an old acquaintance. It was the first time Michael had entered the gaming rooms since his return. It seemed to him as though he had awakened miraculously into the world of things before the war. Everything that was afflicting humanity remained on the other side of the door, as the action of a drama, unreal but exciting, remains on the stage of a theater which we leave behind us. He found even a certain attractiveness in the architecture of these drawing rooms, because of their vague familiarity, recalling the pleasant days of his life. He was in the Renaissance hall, but his whole attention was taken by the adjoining parlor, the central rotunda of the Casino, called the "Schmidt Drawing Room," the one onwhich all the other rooms converge and which seems to be prolonged under the dividing archways to the farthest ends of the building.
A pulsing silence arose from the mass of human beings around the green tables. Every one was talking in a low voice as though in church. From time to time this murmur was broken by a long swishing sound, a noise like that of pebbles on the shore swept by a wave. It was caused by the rakes of the employees sweeping the green cloth and carrying with them the clashing coins and ivory ships—all the spoils of the losings. The voices of thecroupiers, like those of officers giving commands, arose above the feverish silence which reminded one of a humming hive.
"Faites vos jeux. Vos jeux sont faits?... Rien ne va plus."
The hall gradually lost the suppressed noises which served to accentuate its silence. People breathed more naturally, as they craned their necks to see better over the shoulders of those in front of them. Some of the women were standing on one foot only, with the other raised behind them like dancers bending over to touch the ground with their hands. They all crowded together, paying no attention to the sex of the persons against whom they were pushing. During this pause, marked by long faces, frowning eyebrows, drawn mouths, and converging glances, there resounded with its noise increased by a diabolical echo, the rattling of the tiny ivory ball as it whirled in the grooves along the wooden rim, while the colored rows of the roulette wheel kept spinning in the opposite direction, like a kaleidoscope. Suddenly there was a sharp click. The ball had ended its circular flight, falling into a number. The silence was prolonged. The spectators' necks were craned even more. There was a nervous clenching of fists. Again there wasthe sound of pebbles washed by the sea. The rakes were sweeping the green table. It was a bad number for the players. Whenever a stifled uproar occurred, caused by a hundred bosoms suddenly breathing freely, it took thecroupiersseveral minutes to resume play. They had to pay the winners and settle disputes between those who claimed the same bet. At the end of each play various groups at a table would disengage themselves to go over to another; but the ring of people always remained compact through the arrival of new spectators.
From the central skylight a dim splendor descended. Outside the sun was shining on the azure sea. This light was like that of a wine cellar, a light, according to Castro, like that of a Hall of Congress. It was a yellowish light gold which seemed to increase the magnificence of the drawing rooms. The architecture was of the rich and majestic sort that attracts the crowd and the newly rich. The columns and pillars of onyx and bronze held up a magnificent ceiling, broken by the circular stained glass of the skylight. In the four triangles of the vault were statues representingAir,Earth,Fire, andWater, as though these four elements had some relation to the business which gave the vast edifice its reason for existence.
Four metal spiders, huge and glistening, completed the heavy sumptuousness of the decoration. Where there were no gilded ornaments or mirrors, the walls were covered with showy pictures. These paintings and all of the rest that adorned the Casino were the object of Michael's jests. Some of them were fairly acceptable. The majority appeared very ancient in spite of the fact that they were not over forty years old. But there was nothing noble about their antique appearance. It seemed rather as though they had lain for centuries in scorn andoblivion. Atilio accounted for the appearance of these canvases in a way of his own. According to him they were the work of various patrons ruined by gambling, whom the Casino felt obliged to advertise.
The Prince began to notice well-known faces in this crowd which was being constantly renewed, and was changing each moment. The whole world, sooner or later passed that way. That floor with its various inlaid woods was one of the most frequented spots of Europe. It was something like the ancient Roman forum, a point on which all roads of the entire world converged. Idlers from the entire globe were attracted to this room. They all dreamed of being able to go sometime and risk a coin in the great Mediterranean gambling house. Men from other continents disembarking in the old world wrote Monte Carlo on the itinerary of their travels. But this human river which constantly glided along, receiving new waves of arrivals, kept leaving in the crannies of its shores, pools of stagnant waters, clogged by uprooted plants and the naked trunks of trees.
Lubimoff nodded to certain persons, who looked at him with a sort of cordial surprise, as though they were looking at a dead man brought to life. An old man, with a short bristling beard on a face pale as a corpse, bowed deeply as he passed, without seeming in his humility to be offended at not receiving an acknowledgment. He was the man most sought after and coaxed by the women who frequented the Casino. He wore a sort of black cap like that of a priest, and carried a hat in one hand. On his coat lapel was a medal of enamel work with the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Atilio and Lewis had also sought him frequently. Michael was sure that this man was a friend of the Duchess de Delille and that on more than one occasion he had seen her tears. He loaned money at5 per cent (for every 24 hours), and spent the time, he was not busy, watching new arrivals from a distance to see if they might turn out to be new clients.
The Prince received smiles, also from certain respectable looking women who were by no means ugly, though they were stout in some parts of their body and slender in others, like persons who have taken a course to reduce flesh without obtaining a uniform result. They were seated on the divans in the corners, talking among themselves, and watching the groups of gamblers, with the air of employees resting after having done their duty. They had come to Monte Carlo many years ago with jewels, with thousands of francs, and men who endured all the unevenness of their tempers and in addition gave them money. And everything had vanished on the Casino tables. But they went on clinging to the reef on which they had been wrecked—perhaps beyond salvation, living on the jettison of many another who had followed the same route, only to be dashed on the same rocks and perish. They offered their services to strangers as persons acquainted with the mysteries of the house, advising honey-moon couples what number they should play, as though they knew the secret. Besides they came to the Casino at the opening hour to get the best places at the tables and later give up their chairs to wealthy players, steady clients, who rewarded them generously if luck favored them.
He met still others also. A number of women passed close to him. They were old, but of an age incapable yet of frankly facing the free air and the open sunlight. Their appearance of antiquity was accentuated by their strange apparel, which recalled no particular style—dresses of bright colors that had faded, and which seemed to have been cut from old curtains, and smelled like a musty old house;—and monumental hats or sphericalturbans made of mosquito netting. Some were thin as skeletons; others were mountains of living fat; but all of them were painted scandalously with vermilion and had blue rings around their lightless eyes.
"Alouis, Prince," murmured the most daring. "I am sure that you will bring me luck." As she spoke, her false teeth, too large for her gums, rattled; a stench of the grave accompanied the smile on the painted lips.
Michael knew who they were, from Toledo's tales. The Colonel, as an admirer of fallen royalty, accepted their conversation with melancholy deference. One of them had been a sweetheart of Victor Emanuel; another, who was older, recalled, with sighs, the days of Napoleon III, and of Morny.
They had come to die in Monte Carlo, the last spot on earth able to remind them of the splendors of sixty years before; some of them, in memory of their vanished jewels, calmly displayed brass ornaments and beads of glass. According to a paradox of Castro's, they had died many years before, spending the night in the Monaco Cemetery dressing themselves with the spoils from other corpses and coming to the Casino from force of habit to contemplate once more the scenes of their remote youth. The Prince gave them a few bank notes and went out, while they ran to gamble this money, after having thanked him for the gift, with a death-head grin that was the last remnant of their former professional charm.
Suddenly Michael stopped, observing the various parasites who lived by clinging to the gearing of the terrible machine and feeding on the crumbs it pulverized. He became interested in the crowd which was always apparently the same, though always with distinct individuals. There were some who walked along leaning on canes, invalids' canes tipped with rubber—the only kindallowed in the gaming room for fear of quarrels. He noticed flaccid old women slowly hobbling along, paralytic gentlemen leaning on the arm of tall, robust fellows in braided uniforms who led them in a fatherly fashion toward the roulette wheels and eased them into their chairs. A few paralytics arrived at the foot of the stairway in little carriages like children's carts, and thence were carried on hand chairs through the rooms to their favorite spot. At certain moments it seemed as though the gambling hall were a famous health resort, or a place of miracles, like Lourdes. They came just as incurable invalids come to other places, impelled by a last hope; but in this case the hope was not for health. That was the least of their cares. What galvanized them here was the hope of fortune, and dreams of wealth, as if riches would be of any service to these poor bodies lacking all the appetites which make life pleasant.
Mentally the Prince summed up all human passions in two pleasures which are the springs of all action—love and gambling. There were people who experienced equally the attraction of them both—Castro, for example. He himself had been interested only in love and could not understand the pleasures of gambling. Whenever he had gotten up from the gaming tables, each time with winnings, he had never felt any temptation to return. But looking at these ailing people, some of them very aged, at those incurables, all of them dragging themselves toward the roulette wheel as though toward a miraculous bath, he condoned them pityingly. What other pleasure was there left for them on earth? How could they fill the emptiness of their lives prolonged so tenaciously?
What he could not understand was the intense attitude, the hard faces, of the other gamblers who were healthy and strong. Young men moved among the women aroundthe tables with hostile brusqueness, quarrelling with them harshly and treating them like enemies. Women suddenly lost their grace and freshness, becoming masculine all at once as they looked at the rows of cards oftrente et quaranteor at the mad whirl of the colored wheel. Their gestures were those of prize fighters. Their mouths were drawn. There was a look of fierceness in their eyes. As though warned instinctively of this transformation, no sooner did they tear themselves away from the tables than they took out their vanity case—the little mirror, the powder, and the rouge—to correct or efface the passing ravages of the play. Those of more dignified and normal appearance showed themselves at times to be the most reckless. In a place where all the women were doing the same as they, gambling had something official about it, something worthy of respect; it was possible for them to indulge in a vice without fear of gossip, without the risk of being criticized.
The Prince smiled as he remembered a story Toledo had told him a few days before: the despair of a woman of about forty who came from Nice with her two daughters every afternoon, and had finally lost fifty thousand francs.
"Oh! If I had only taken a lover," the mother had groaned with tears in her eyes. "It would have been better if I had chosen love."
Michael entered the other rooms that had no skylight. The clusters of electric bulbs lighting them with senseless splendor made him think of the burning sun and the azure sea just beyond those walls of gold and jasper.
Above the tables were oil lamps with two enormous shades each one sheltering four fixtures which hung by bronze chains several yards long, attached to the ceiling. Thus if the electric current was cut off, therewas no danger of the patrons feeling tempted to appropriate the money on the tables.
Occasionally a little bell would sound, rung by one of the employees in black frock coat who directed the playing. A chip, a coin, or a bank note had fallen under the table. Suddenly with the promptness of a scene shifter waiting behind the stage, a lackey dressed in a blue and gold uniform appeared, carrying a dark lantern and a hook to rummage about among the players' feet until he found the lost object.
The discipline observable in these vast rooms was like that on a warship, where everything is in its place and every man at his post. In order to make sure that everything was going properly, various respectable gentlemen with decorations on their coat lapels, walked back and forth among the tables, with the air of officers on duty. Whenever voices were raised, these men appeared with rapid strides, to cut short the arguments in some tactful manner. When two gamblers claimed the same bet, they immediately settled the dispute by paying both. The money would finally come back to the house any way!
According to Atilio, the Casino was honeycombed in all directions with secret galleries, hidden openings and even trap doors, like the stage for a comedy of magic—all these for the sake of immediate service, and to avoid any annoyance to the patrons.
Sometimes the invalid fainted at the table or fell dead through too violent emotion. Immediately the wall would open and eject two attendants with a stretcher who would cause the troublesome body to disappear as though by enchantment. Those at the adjoining table would scarcely have a chance to be aware of it.
At other times it would be a suicide. Lubimoff knew a table called the Suicide Table, because an Englishmanhad killed himself there in melodramatic fashion, shooting himself with a pistol when he had lost his last penny. His brains had been scattered in shreds on the green baize and on the faces of his neighbors, and even on the frock coats of thecroupiers. There are always people who have no tact, and who do not know how to behave in good society! But the attendants emerged from the wall, carried away the corpse, and cleaned the blood from the carpet and table.
Shortly afterwards, from the oval of people crowding against the green table, the consecrated words arose: "Faites vos jeux.... Vos jeux sont faits?... Rien ne va plus."
The Prince recalled the famous suicide bench in the gardens of the Casino. It was all a magazine yarn. No such bench had ever existed. When several persons killed themselves on the same bench, the administration had its position changed immediately! Besides, the number of suicides was much exaggerated. There were two or three each year, no more. According to Castro, it was no longer the fad to kill one's self at Monte Carlo. It showed an unpardonable lack of taste. The proper thing to do was to go a long way off and disappear without making any commotion.
Besides the house police were quick to detect those who were in despair. Such people received a railway ticket at once and they were advised to kill themselves, like good fellows, in Marseilles, or if not so far away, at least in Nice or Menton.
Michael was near the "Suicide Table" close to the entrance to the private rooms, when he noticed a certain commotion in the crowd. Groups were seeking one another to exchange news. The old patrons were moved by professional feeling. Something important was going on. The Prince knew the meaning of these suddenbursts of curiosity: a player was winning or losing in remarkable fashion.
He heard indistinctly a name that brought him to attention.
"The Duchess de Delille—two hundred thousand francs!"
All those who had permission to play in the private rooms hurried toward the large glass door which gave access to them. Michael followed this living current.
He found himself in an enormous hall with a lofty ceiling. On one side four large balconies opened out on the terraces, and the Mediterranean. Because of the war they were covered with dark curtains to hide the light from within. The wall opposite was adorned with various gigantic mirrors. On the ceiling seventeen white, full-breasted caryatids, bending under the weight of the roof, supported the wide bands of rock crystal, with electrical bulbs, which shed a sort of moonlight.
Those whom curiosity had attracted, passed the first gaming tables with an air of indifference. Everybody was crowding around the last, the "trente et quarante," at the foot of a large picture, in which three buxom lasses in the nude against a background of dark trees like those in the Boboli Gardens, represented theFlorentine Graces.
The great phenomenon was taking place there. Craning his neck above the shoulders of two sightseers, Michael caught a glimpse of Alicia seated at the table with an anxious expression on her face. All eyes were upon her. In front of her, were heaps of bank notes and many columns of chips. There were the five hundred franc ovals, and the one thousand franc squares, "little cakes of soap" as they call the latter, in the language of the Casino.
Suddenly she raised her head as though realizing instinctivelythe presence of some one interesting to her. And her eyes fell straight on Michael. She greeted him with a happy smile. There was the suggestion of a kiss in her glance. And all the people there, with the submission of a mob when dominated by enthusiasm or amazement, followed her eyes to see who the man was whom the heroine was greeting in this manner. The vanity of the Prince was flattered, as it used to be when some celebrated actress greeted him from the stage and went on singing with her eyes fastened upon him to dedicate to him her trills. Once, when he was a boy, a bull-fighter had bowed to him in a friendly way before giving the final death thrust in the arena. Alicia seemed to be choosing him as her god of luck.
But immediately she fell back into the deep absorption of the play. She was not alone. An invisible and powerful person was standing behind her chair, bending over her to whisper in her ear some word of unfailing counsel, to suggest some unlooked for resolution, some original and daring idea. Her eyes, lighted by a mysterious fire, were gazing on something that no one else could see. Her mute lips trembled with nervous contractions, as though she were talking with some one who did not need sound to be able to hear. Michael felt there was a demon-like power beside her, the inspiration of the unforgettable hours which reveal to artists a masterful harmony, an illuminating word, or a supreme stroke of the brush; the inspiration which prompts the final slaughter in battle or the decisive move in some business venture, that means either millions or suicide.