Long after the curtain had fallen I sat on. I had seen Antoine Georges step before the footlights leading Fiesole. I had seen him alternately bend above her hand and bow his acknowledgments to the applause. I did not like him, this fat little Frenchman, with his thin beard and spindly legs. The polite proprietorship of his bearing towards her had impressed me as offensive. I felt sure that he was smacking his lips and saying, “They shall believe that it’s all true, this that they say about us.”
From the wings had come lackeys carrying garlands. They had built up a garden about her. The people had gone mad, standing up in their places and thunderously shouting. From all parts of the theatre flowers had rained on her. They had stormed her with flowers. Women had torn bouquets from their dresses and wreaths from their hair. It might have been a carnival; the air was dense with falling blossoms. And she had faced them with the smile of a pleased child, while Monsieur Georges bent double before her.
It was all over. Men were busy with brooms, sweeping up the litter of her triumph. This happened every night: they got used to it. Already in thefauteuils d’orchestreperfunctory faded women were adjusting linen coverings. The last stragglers of the audience were reluctantly going through the doors.
A man entered my box and tapped me on the shoulder. I stared up at him; his expression made me laugh. He evidently mistook me for a crank who was likely to give trouble. I reached for my hat and coat wearily; I felt that I had been beaten all over. As I folded my scarf about my neck I made bold to ask him where I could find Fiesole. He shrugged his shoulders, darting out his hands, palms upwards, as one who said, “Ah, it is beyond me! Who can tell?”
But it was important that I should see her, I urged; I was an old friend.
An old friend! These days La Fiesole had many old friends. Were it permitted to her old friends to see her, all the messieurs would cross the footlights. He eyed me with impatience, anxious to see the last of me, his waxlike face wickedly ironic.
I produced a fifty-franc note. Would it not be possible for him to deliver her a message?
If Monsieur would write out his message he would make certain that La Fiesole got it.
So I scribbled my address on the back of a card, asking her to allow me to speak with her.
I folded the fifty-franc note about it and handed it to my tyrant. From the lack of surprise with which he accepted I gathered that he had pocketed greater amounts for a like service.
In the street I paused irresolute. From my feet, could I follow it, a path led through crowded boulevards directly to her. I could not be very distant from her; a lucky choice of direction, the chance turning of a corner might bring us face to face. That I was in her mind was probable. She was remembering, as I was remembering, that day at Lido and that night at Venice. Was she satisfied with her revenge? She had always been generous. Somewhere in this passionate white night of Paris her car sped on through illumined gulleys; she lay back on cushions, her eyes half-shut, her mouth faintly smiling, picturing the past at my expense. I liked to think that she hated me; it was in keeping with her character; I respected her for it. The women who had loved me had made things too easy; it had always been I who had done the refusing. My blood was eager for the danger of pursuing. I longed for resistance that I might overcome her. I loved her with my body, I told myself, as I had never loved a woman; my cold, calculating intellectuality was in abeyance. That she should make my path of return difficult added a novel zest.
The human tide was drifting towards Montmartre; I fell in and followed. On the pavement before cafés at little round tablesboulevardierswere seated, sipping their absinthe, their eyes questing for the first hint of adventure. Taxis flashed by, soaring up “the mountain” like comets, giving me glimpses as they passed of faces drawn near together, ravishing in their transient tenderness. How was it? What had happened? For the first time in my remembrance I had ceased to analyze; I had ceased to sadden my present with foreknowledge.
Far away the Place Pigalle beckoned. Up tortuous streets, between ancient houses, the traffic streamed like a fire-fly army on the march. As I neared the top I entered the pale-gold haze of its unreality. Electric signs of L’Abbaye, the Bal Tabarin, and the Rat Mort glittered on the night like paste jewels on the robe of a courtesan. Women trooped by me like blown petals, peering into my face and smiling invitation. I marked down their types in my mind by the names of flowers—jasmine, rose, poppy.
I was curiously transformed from that evening of long ago when I had watched these sights with horror, and had fled from Paris in the dawn to Florence. I felt no anger, no revulsion—only tolerance. I had finished with peeping beneath the surface. Fiesole had taught me to despise all that.Fiesole! Fiesole!I saw her always dancing on before me, mocking my sobriety. Yes, I told myself, she had made me kinder.
A couplet fromSir Galahad in Montmartredinned in my brain and summed up my estimate of my former self
“He sees not the need in their faces;
’Tis the sin and the lust that he traces.”
I had never looked for the need in any woman’s face. I had been absorbed in contemplation of my own chastity—had hurried through life with hands in pockets, fearful lest I might be robbed. Vi’s need, which I had recognized, I had made ten times more poignant. I had waited for her. What good had I done by it? I might go on waiting. Meanwhile there were Fiesole and Life knocking at my door. My constancy to Vi had become a luxury.
A girl slipped her arm in mine. “’Allo! You zink I am pretty?”
She was acocotte, little more than a child, so delicate and slight. Her hair was flaxen and blowy; her complexion a transparent china-white; her dress décolleté and cut in a deep V between the breasts. She pushed her small face up to mine with the red lips parted, clinging to me with the innocent familiarity of one who had asked no more than a roguish question.
“You’re pretty, but——”
“Zen we go togezer!”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Pourquoi non?”
“I’m hoping to meet someone.”
She released me at once with a good-natured smile. “La! La! I hopes you find ’er.”
She tripped away, turning before she was lost in the crowd to wave her hand. I told myself that her flower was the jonquil.
It was one o’clock when, after wandering about, I found myself back at the same place. I could not sleep; my brain was too active with excitement. Instead of being sad because of Fiesole, I was unreasonably elated. I took a seat at a table on the pavement and ordered coffee and cognac. Every man and woman within sight was a lover, and I sat solitary. As the hour grew later men and women grew more frank in their embraces, and all with that naïve assumption of privacy which makes the Frenchman, even in his vices, seem so much a child. The sex-instinct beat about “the mountain”—the air quivered and pulsated.
Girls rustled in the shadows. Lovers, chance-met, danced home together. Strange to say, I found nothing sinful in it—only romance. I had ceased to look beyond the immediate sensation.
“Poor boy! You not find ’er?”
I looked up; my lady of the jonquils was leaning over my shoulder.
“No.”
“Eh bien, peut-être, you find her to-morrow,hein!If not, zere are ozers.” She waved her small gloved hands in a circle, bringing them back to include herself. She looked a good little soul, standing there so bravely disguising her weariness.
“Tired?”
“It ees nozing.”
“Won’t you join me?”
Immediately we were in sympathy. She owned me with a playfulness which had no hint of indelicacy. Drawing off her gloves, she rested her chin on her knitted fingers and regarded me laughingly with her world-wise eyes. She was scarcely more than half my years, I suppose.
“Zere are ozers,” she repeated.
“Not for me,” I said; “not to-night.”
“Dieu! You are funny, my friend. You lofe like zat?” The waiter hovered nearer, flirting his napkin across the marble-tables.
I beckoned; he dashed up like a hen to which I had scattered grain.
“Croûte au pot?”
“Bien, Monsieur.”
“Filet aux truffes.”
“Bien, Monsieur.”
“Salade romaine.”
“Bien, Monsieur.”
“Vouvray.”
“Bien, Monsieur.”
I turned to her. She had corn-flower eyes like Kitty—I had been wondering of whom I was reminded. I passed her my cigarette-case. She chose one fastidiously and tilted it between her lips with the smile of agamine.
While we ate neither of us said much—she was hungry; but, as we sipped our coffee and the pile of cigarette ends grew, I found myself telling her—asking her if a man had refused her once, whether she could ever again love him.
“If he haf a great heart, oui. If he haf not——” She threw her cigarette away. “C’est la vie! Quoi?” She snapped her fingers and leant over and took my hand, this gay little Montmartroise. “But you haf; zo courage, my friend.”
I did not want to be left alone; she knew it. Afiacre, with a battered race-horse propped between the shafts, had drawn up against the curb. On the box a red-facedcochernodded. We climbed in and she nestled beside me. Thecocherlooked across his shoulder, asking where to drive. “Straight on,” I told him.
We crawled away down “the mountain”; as we went, she sang contentedly just above her breath. When we reached the Madeleine thecocherhalted, inquiring gruffly whither he should drive. “Tout droit. Tout droit”; we both cried impatiently. So again we moved slowly forward. There was no doubt in the man’s mind that we were mad.
She drew closer to me and cuddled into my coat; the foolish prettiness of her dress was no protection against the chill night air. We lay back, her head resting on my shoulder, gazing up at the star-scattered sky. The asphalt surface of the boulevard, polished by petrol and rubber-tires to the dull brightness of steel, glimmered in a long line before us reflecting the arc-lamps like a smooth waterway—like a slow canal in ancient Venice.
Where we went I do not know; I did not care to notice. The creakingfiacrehad become a gondola and it was Fiesole who leant against me. Sometimes thecocherdrew up to light a cigarette and to glance suspiciously down upon us. Then I was brought back to reality. We circled the Bastille and prowled through theQuartier Latin, where the night was not so late. We crossed the river once more and crept along theQuai des Tuileries; then again we climbed “the mountain” and plunged into the grimy purlieus ofLes Halles. Market-carts were already creaking, in from the country with swinging lamps. Wagons piled high with vegetables, loomed mountainous under eaves of houses. From the market came grumbling voices of men unloading, and the occasional squealing of a stallion.
Thecocherwriggled on his box and confronted me fretfully. Before he could ask his question, “Sacré nom d’un chien!” I shouted fiercely, “Allez. Allez.” Meekly he jerked at the reins, sinking his head between his obedient shoulders.
I looked down at the tiny face beside me—the face of a white flower whose petals are folding. She had ceased her singing an hour ago. Feeling me stir, she struggled to open her eyes and slipped her small hand into mine. When I drew my arm tighter about her she sighed happily.
Above the tottering roofs of Paris the night grew haggard. One by one stars were snuffed out. Wisps of clouds drove across the moon like witches riding homeward. It was the hour when even Paris grows quiet. Ragpickers were slinking through the shadows, raking over barrels set out on the curb. Women, shuddering in bedraggled finery—queens of Montmartre once, perhaps, whose only weariness had been too many lovers—dragged themselves to some sheltered doorway, thankful for a bed in the gutter, if it were undisturbed. In boulevards for lengthy pauses ours was the only sound of traffic.
My head jerked nearer hers. Her breath was on my cheek; I could feel the twitching of her supple body. Poor little lady of the jonquils—of what was she dreaming? What had she expected from me? She would tell often of this eccentric night and no one would credit her story.
When I awoke she was still sleeping. A spring breeze ruffled the trees; sparrows were chirping; a golden morning sparkled across the waters of the Seine. The sun, still ruddy from his rising, stood magnificently young among the chimney-pots, trailing his gleaming mantle beneath the bridges.
The battered race-horse had stumbled with us just beyond the Louvre and stood with his head sagging between his knees, his body lurching forward. The reins had fallen from thecocher’shands; his thick neck was deep in his collar; and his face looked strangled. From across the road a waiter scattered sand between his newly set out tables and watched us with amused curiosity.
My body was cramped. As I attempted to uncrook my legs, my companion opened her eyes and stared at me in amazed confusion. She yawned and sat up laughing, patting her mouth. “Oh,la, la——. Bonjour, toi!”\
We examined ourselves—I in my crumpled evening-dress, and she in her flimsy gown and decorative high-heeled shoes. I had a glimpse of my face in imagination—pale and donnish; the very last face for such a situation. How ill-assorted! Then I laughed too; thecocherlumbered round on his box and burst into a hoarse guffaw at sight of us. We all laughed together, and the waiter ceased sanding his floor to laugh with us.
We left the racer to his well-earned rest and all three went across to the café. As we soaked bread in our bowls of coffee and plied our spoons, we chatted merrily like good comrades. Then we parted with thecocher, leaving him agreeably surprised, and sauntered down the Quai where workmen in blue blouses, hurrying from across the bridges, found time to nudge one another knowingly and to smile into our eyes with a glad intimacy which was not at all offensive.
In a narrow street where “the mountain” commenced, she halted and placed both her hands on my shoulders, tiptoeing against me.
“One ’as to go ’ome sometime, mon ami.” She was determined to be a sportsman to the end. “But remember, mon petit, if you do not find ’er, zere are ozers.”
I put my hand into my pocket. She examined what I gave her. “Mais, non!” she exclaimed, flushing.
“But yes—for remembrance.”
She tilted up her face and her happy eyes clouded; the tired cheeks turned whiter and the painted lips quivered. “Little one, keess me.”
So I parted from this chance-met waif with her brave and generous heart—— And this was what my madness and Fiesole had taught me. For the time the memory of Vi was entirely banished from my thoughts.
At my hotel I found no message. But it was still early; she might not have received my card and, as yet, did not know my address. The intoxication of the previous night still flicked my spirit into optimism—perhaps she would answer me in person.
Then came the reaction—the truer judgment. If she had desired to see me, she could have sent round word to my box at the theatre. After all, why should she desire to see me? She was famous and had made her world without me. When we parted, I had left her with a memory so humiliating that it must scorch her even now. These were things which a woman finds it difficult to forgive—impossible to forget. Still, there was curiosity—a woman’s curiosity! She might resist it for a time, tantalizing both me and herself; but she would have to see me presently, if only to wound me.
I scarcely stirred from my hotel, afraid lest I should miss her. By the time evening fell, I had come to a new conclusion—that the ironical scoundrel, who had so coolly pocketed my money, had destroyed my card. To make sure of reaching her, I wrote a letter to the theatre, saying many true things foolishly. Then, in sheer restlessness, I hurried to the boulevard in which her theatre was situated, hoping to get a glimpse of her either coming or going.
I could not bring myself to enter—it was too horrible and beautiful—she was dancing away her womanhood in there. Shockingly fascinated as I had been by the spectacle, I felt a lover’s jealousy that strangers should watch it.
I hated the gay crowds seething in to find enjoyment in my shame and her tragedy. They were jesters at something sacred.
I paced the boulevard with clenched hands and snapping nerves; I could not go far away from her, and I could not go to her. Within my brain she was always dancing, dancing, and the jaded eyes of Paris grew young with greed of her sensational perfection. I longed to go to her, to protect her, to save her from herself. She needed me, though she would scorn the idea if I told her. If she would but allow it, I would carry her away from these hectic nights and this subtle, soul-destroying sensualism. Her shame was my doing; I would give all my life to make amends to her.
But she gave me no sign that she had either seen or heard from me. What else could I expect? How could I explain my infatuation even to myself, let alone to her, as more than physical attraction? And was it more?... Once she had offered me far more than I now begged; I had churlishly refused it. How could I account to her for my altered valuation of her worth? She would not answer—I knew that now. I should have to compel her attention.
Next morning in reading the papers I came across her name frequently. She was the madcap darling of Paris; every edition contained some anecdote ofLa Fiesoleand her erratic doings. One item captured my interest especially: there was a certain café in the Champs Elysées to which she went often after theatre hours. For the time being she had made it the most fashionable midnight resort in Paris.
That night, having bribed heavily for the privilege, I was seated at a table near the entrance. If she came, she could scarcely pass without seeing me. The place was anal frescorestaurant, gorgeously theatric. It stood in a garden, brilliantly romantic and insincere as a stage-setting. Overlooking the garden were white verandahs, creeper-covered and garish with hothouse flowers; throughout it were scattered kiosks and bowers in which the more secret of the diners sat. The plumed trees were knit together with ropes of lights, like pearl-necklaces which had been tossed into their branches casually. In bushes and hidden among blossoms, glow-worm illuminations twinkled, like faeries kindling and extinguishing their lamps. Everything was subdued and sensuous. Fountains played and splashed. Statues glimmered. A gipsy orchestra, fierce-looking and red-coated, clashed frenzied music, which sobbed away into dreamy waltzes and elusive snatches of melody. The effect was bizarre—artistically unreal and emotionally tropic.
Here one might experience a great passion which consumed by its panting brevity; everyone seemed present for the express purpose of realizing such a passion.
At tables seated in couples were extraordinary people, dressed to play their part in a dare-devil romance. Here were men who looked like Russian Archdukes, bearded, bloodless, and insolently languid. Sitting opposite them were voluptuous women, tragically exotic, dangerously coaxing, with the melodramatic appearance of scheming nihilists. They were reckless, these costly, slant-eyed odalisques—exiles from commonplace kindliness, born gamblers for the happiness they had thrown away and would never re-capture. There was the atmosphere of intrigue, of indiscreet liaison about almost every couple. They acted as though for one ecstatic moment the world was theirs. Their behavior was everything that is exaggerated, fond, undomestic, and arrogantly well-bred.
There was something lacking. As each new arrival entered, the slanted eyes of the women and the heavy eyes of the men were raised droopingly with an expression of furtive expectancy. They were a chorus assembled, waiting for the leading actor till the play should commence.
Low rippling laughter, spontaneously joyous, sounded. From the trellised entrance she emerged and halted, looking mock-bashful, taking in the effect she had created, spurning the gravel with her golden slipper. Her gown was of dull green satin, cut audaciously low in the back and neck, and slashed from the hem to expose her slim ankle and golden stocking. She wore no jewels, but between her breasts was a yellow rose, which drifted nodding on the whiteness of her bosom as she drew her breath. Her reddish gold hair was wrappeden bandeauxabout her small pale ears and broad pale forehead. It shone metallic; its brightness dulled and quickened as she swayed her splendid body.
At her first appearance a muttering had arisen, gathering in volume. As she lifted her head and her green eyes flashed through her long, bronze lashes, we grew silent. It was as though a tamer had entered a cage of panthers and stood cowing them with her consciousness of power. Yes, she knew what they thought of her, and guessed what they admired in her. She surveyed us with quiet contempt. I felt that behind whatever she did or said there lay hidden a timid girlishness. She was still the old Fiesole, the happy companion who could tramp through rainstorms like a man. Her brave pagan purity these half-way decadents had not tarnished; by them it was unsuspected. I watched her tall, lithe figure; the neck so small that one could span it with a hand; the firm, high bosom, proud and virginal; the straight, frank brows, and the mouth so red and sweetly drooping. Other women looked decorative and tinsel beside her natural perfection.
My throat was parched. My eyes felt scalded. I was unnerved and a-tremble. Her beauty daunted as much as it challenged. What bond still existed between us that would draw her to me? She looked so remote, so hemmed in by the new personality she had developed.
Her green eyes swept the garden, probing its secret shadows. For whom was she looking? They rested on mine, absorbed me—then fell away without recognition. I had risen in my place, with head bent forward, ready to go to her at the least sign of friendship. I remained standing and staring.
She turned to one of her companions and whispered something, at which they both laughed. He was a tall poetic-looking man, slight of hip, blue-eyed, and handsome. His hair was wavy and yellow, his face bearded, and his skin pale with excess. There were other men with her, Monsieur Georges among others; but on the poet alone she lavished her attention. She gave him her arm and came towards me with the undulating stride that I knew so well. For a second I believed she was going to acknowledge me; she went by so closely that her gown trailed across my feet and brushed my hands. It was cruelly intended. The play had opened.
The table that had been reserved for her was next to mine, partly hidden from the public gaze by bushes; as I watched, I caught glimpses of her profile, and could always hear the lazy murmur of her voice and occasionally fragments of what was said. I followed her foreign gestures, her tricks of personality—all of them adorably familiar: the way she shifted her eyebrows in listening, sunk her chin between her breasts when she was serious, and clapped her hands in excitement. She was as simple as a child—in her heart she had not altered. Even the way in which she made me suffer what she had suffered was childish. This pretending not to know me was so transparent. There were other and more subtle methods by which she could have taken her revenge.
I was not the only man who attempted to spy on her; there might have been no other woman present. Languid faces scattered throughout the garden took on a new sharpness. They turned and looked down from balconies on La Fiesole, eager to catch glimpses of her. To their women-companions men listened with a bored pretense of attention. Perhaps it was because of this, in an effort to focus interest on themselves, that the women, as by a concerted plan, became more animated.
Suddenly a girl in scarlet leapt upon a table and commenced to dance with flashing eyes and whirling skirts. I heard someone say that she was a gipsy and that her brother was first-violinist in the orchestra. The music mounted up, wild and unrestrained; the small feet beat faster; the actions became more frenzied. She turned away from her comrade and bent back double, peering into his eyes; she flung herself from him, chaffing him with grim endearments; she feigned to become furious; then she threw herself across his knees exhausted, writhing her arms about his neck. Men eyed her with studied carelessness. She had done it before and they had applauded. They could see her any night. They could not always feast their eyes on La Fiesole.
Saturnalia broke loose. Girl after girl rose upon chair or table, or went swaying through the magic garden like a frail leaf harried by a storm. They danced singly, they danced together, going through grotesque contortions, beckoning lovers with their eyes and gestures.
And I watched Fiesole through the bushes. She was not so indifferent to me as she pretended. She was playacting to rouse my jealousy; she was purposely scourging me into madness. I alone of the public was sufficiently near to see clearly what she was doing. She was luring her poet to recklessness, taking no notice of what was in process about her. Did I catch her eye, she looked past me without recognition. But him she enticed by her gentleness. The man was drunk with her favor and beauty. He trembled to put the thoughts of a lover into action; she challenged him with her eyes, warning him from her and beckoning him to her.
Stooping over her, so low that his lips were in her hair, he whispered; but she shook her head. She rested her hand lightly on his shoulder, as though to steady him and to soften the unkindness of her refusal. Quickly he caught it in his own and bent over it, running his lips along her fingers and up her arm’s smooth curves. She looked down on him unmoved, disdainful at his breach of manners, yet superbly amorous. Clutching her hotly to him, he kissed her on the throat.
Blind anger shook me—lust for violence such as I had never felt. Breaking into the toy arbor where they sat, I remember standing over him, dragging him backward by the collar, so that his face glared up at mine empurpled. His friends rushed forward, beating me about the head and shoulders, tearing at my hands, trying to make me release my hold.
Fiesole had risen like a fury. The table went down with a crash. Her face was deadly pale and her green eyes blazed with indignation. Her hands were clenched as if she also were about to strike me. And I was pouring out a torrent of words, telling her swiftly how I loved her and all that she had made me suffer.
Her rage died away as she listened and her expression became inscrutable. Quickly she darted back her head, laughing without happiness, mockingly. “You are very English, my friend. If you make so much noise, these messieurs will think we are married.”
I caught her by the wrists, so that she backed away from me. “I wish to God we were.”
“Oh, la, la, la!”
She went off into a peal of merriment, pointing her finger at me. The crowd gathered round us uncertain, asking in half-a-dozen languages what had been the provocation and what we were saying.
Her look changed. It was as though a mask had fallen. The temptress and witch were gone. I seemed to see in her melancholy eyes all the longing for tenderness and loyalty that I thought had been killed years ago in Venice.
She advanced her face to mine and stared at me timidly, as though fearful she had been mistaken.
“Take me out of this,” she whispered hoarsely.
Her companions tried to intercept us, gesticulating and protesting. She brushed them aside, explaining that I was not myself and did not know what I was doing. For her sake they let me go without further molestation.
We passed out, leaving them gaping after us. I helped her into her furs and took my place beside her in the coupé. Before we were out of earshot, the gipsy orchestra had swung into a new frenzy.
Once Vi had kept me from Fiesole; now Fiesole was taking me from Vi. And these two women who, through me, had influenced one another’s destinies, had never met. They were hostile types.
Iwas at a loss what to say to her. Words could not bridge the gulf of more than five years that separated us. Now that anger had subsided, my genius for self-ridicule was at work. What a fool I had made of myself; how supremely silly I must appear in her eyes! It would be in all the papers to-morrow. How would she like that? Where was she taking me and why? Had she come with me simply to get me out of a public place before I committed worse violence?
I pieced together phrases of apology and explanation, but remained tongue-tied. To express the emotions that stormed in my mind all words seemed insincere and inadequate. I was not sufficiently certain of her to venture either speech or action. I was fearful lest her mood might change to one of amusement. My nerves were on edge—I dared not risk that.
Noiseless as a ghost in a dream-world, the electric coupé drifted up the dully gleaming boulevard. I leant against the padded back and watched her. She sat erect, splendidly self-possessed, her profile framed in the carriage-window with the stealthy lights of Paris slipping by for background. Now she was no more than a blurred outline; now the acetylene-lamps of a swiftly moving car flashed on her like a search-light; now the twinkling incandescence of an illumined café flung jewels in her hair; now her face rested like sculptured ivory on the velvet blackness of the night. She was immobile; even the slender fingers clasped together in her lap never stirred. Our silence had lasted so long that it had ceased to be fragile; it rose between us, a wall of ice.
We drew up against the curb. I had but a vague idea of where we were—near the Bois, I conjectured. Tall houses stood in shuttered dumbness along one side; on the other, trees shrank beneath the primrose dusk of arc-lights. She stepped out, ignoring my proffered assistance. She crossed the pavement and tapped; as the door swung back I followed her under an archway into a dim courtyard. Having mounted several flights of stairs, she tapped again. To the sleepy maid who opened she whispered hurriedly. The maid discreetly fell behind.
We passed into a room delicately furnished. The floor was heavily carpeted in red. The walls, hung with etchings and landscapes, were paneled in white. Flowers stood about in bowls and slender vases; shaded lamps gave to the room a secret aspect. In the grate a fire of coals was burning and two deep chairs stood one on either side. The atmosphere was intensely and perishably feminine; it gave me the feeling of preparedness—as though I had been expected. Through tall windows the curious night stared in upon us.
Fiesole crossed, making no sound save the silken rustle of her dress, and drew the curtains close together. She turned, looking back at me side-long, at once amused and languid. Her coldness and aloofness had vanished. The sparkle of mischief fetched the gold from the depths of her green eyes. Her body became expressive and vibrant. Then I heard her sweet hoarse voice, with its quaintly foreign intonation. It reached me tauntingly, lazy with indifference, holding me at arm’s length. “Dear man, take a chair by the fire and behave yourself. Mon Dieu, but you were amusing to-night!”
She laughed softly at remembering and shook her cloak from her white shoulders. A strand of hair broke loose and fell coiling across her breast. She stepped to a mirror, turning her back on me; having twisted it into place, she remained smiling at her reflection, whistling beneath her breath.
Her gaiety cut like a lash across my mouth. I was painfully in earnest. She was treating the situation as an incident—a jest. To me it was a supreme moment—a turning-point: on what we should say to one another would depend the entire direction of both our lives. I was sorry for her beyond the power of words to express. The success and luxury of her way of living did not blind me to its hollowness and danger. Her frivolity left me affronted and fascinated. She roused in me all the unrestraint of the flesh; and yet I desired to worship her with my mind. I longed to carry her away from the fever and glare of streets to a place of quiet, where the world was blowy—where she might become what she had once been when I might have had her, genuine and fine. While these thoughts raced through my mind, the insistent question kept repeating itself, why had she brought me here to be alone with her at this late hour of the night?
Her eyes flashed out at me maddeningly from the mirror. They prompted to irretrievable folly. They called me to go to her, and to be unworthy of both her and myself. And I knew why: she wished me to say and do the things that were unforgivable that she might have excuse to scorn me, to fling me from her. Once it had been my Puritanism that had thrust us apart; it should not now be my sensualism. I would not let her make a hypocrite of me in my own eyes.
The seconds ticked out the silence. Her dress whispered. Her voluptuous white arms, uplifted and curved above her neck as she patted her hair, enhanced the perfect vase-like effect of her body. I would not go to her, I told myself; I would not go to her. I held myself rigid, distraught, and tense. The blood swelled out my throat and beat in my temples. She withdrew her hands. Wickedly, like a shower of largesse, the clustered glory of her hair rained from her head, catching her in a net of smoldering brightness.
She glanced with half-closed eyes across her shoulder and feigned astonishment at observing that I had remained standing.
“Still the same old idjut! Wanting something you’re afraid to have, and looking tragic.”
“Fiesole, girl, don’t you understand? It’s not that.”
My voice sounded odd and strangled. I had spoken scarcely above a whisper.
She swung about and surveyed me leisurely. There was a pout on her mouth like that of a naughty child. “You’re no longer amusing,” she faltered; “you grow tiresome. Why can’t you be sensible, and sit down? I want to hear all this that you’ve got to tell me.”
“You don’t make it easy.”
She shrugged her gleaming shoulders. “Why should I? You made a horrid row about something that was none of your concern. You nearly choked a friend of mine to death. You don’t expect me to say thank you, surely? I ought to punish you; instead, I bring you here. I wanted to have a look at you. Ah! but you were funny—so righteous and English! You made me laugh.... I can forgive anyone who does that.”
When I did not answer, she regarded me puzzled. Slowly her brilliant deviltry and merriment faded. The laughter sank to a whisper and ceased abruptly, frightened at itself. The red lips drooped and parted. Something of my own pinched earnestness was reflected in her expression—it was as though her soul unveiled itself. She stole across to me wonderingly, her beautiful arms stretched out. She rested the tips of her fingers tremulously on my shoulders.
“No, that’s not true. You were splendid—so different from the rest. I’m a beast. You made me ashamed of myself. That’s why I was angry; because you, who made me what I am, should accuse me.”
“Accuse you! God forbid!”
I made a movement to gather her to me, but she slipped past me and sank into a chair.
“Between us not that.” She caught her breath. “I hate you. I want to hate you. What else did you expect? But I can’t. I cannot. You won’t let me.”
“You ought to hate me. Call me what you like; it won’t be worse than I deserve. I was cruel and selfish. I see it now.”
She shook back her hair from her forehead and bent forward gazing into the fire, her elbows on her knees, her face cushioned in her hands. A sudden gravity and wistfulness had fallen on her. She was thinking, remembering, weighing me in the balance. I must not touch her—must not speak to her. If I showed any sign of passion, she would mistake it for pity either of her or of myself.
“I wanted to forget—to live you out of my life; but you’ve brought it all back—the old bitterness and heartache. You didn’t know what you did to me, Dante. You spared my body; you killed everything—everything else that was best. Look at me now.” She glanced down at the exotic daring of her appearance:—the golden stocking that was revealed from ankle to knee by the narrow slash in the skirt; the splendid extravagant display of arms, throat, and breast that swelled up riotously, uninterrupted, snowy and amorous from the sheathlike dress—a flashing blade half-withdrawn from its scabbard.
“I’m a devil. You made me that, you virgin man. No, don’t speak—— I thought I should have died of shame after I left you. I could have killed you. You don’t know how a woman feels when she’s wanted a man with her whole soul and body, and she knows that she’s beautiful; and he’s flung her from him when she’s offered herself, as though she were worthless. ‘He didn’t care,’ I said, ‘so nobody’ll ever care.’—— And then I met Antoine Georges, who had known my father. And I did what you’ve seen and I’ve won success. When I saw you the other night I wanted to make you suffer. I’ve often pictured how I would torture you if ever you should come back—how I’d destroy you—how I’d make you go through the same hell. And now you’ve come, and I can’t do it.—— I may change my mind presently. You’d better go while I let you.”
“I’m never going.”
She turned her head, scrutinizing my face stealthily from between her hands.
“Don’t be a fool. What about her?”
“There’s no one else. There never will be.”
She gasped. “You didn’t marry her?”
The strained look in her face relaxed. She laughed softly to herself; why she laughed I could not guess. It was not the laughter which follows suspense, but the laughter of one who courts danger. It was as though she parted her hair into sheaves and glanced out crying, “I am Eve, the long desired.”
Reaching over to the table she picked out a cigarette. When it was alight, she snuggled down into the chair, kicking off her little gold shoes and resting her feet on the fender. She eyed me dreamily.
“Then you made me suffer all that for nothing? You good men can be cruel.—— Tell me.”
Briefly I told her of my useless visit to Sheba; and why I left; and why I was still unmarried. I kept nothing back in my self-scorn and desire to be honest.
She slipped her feet up and down the gleaming rail as she listened, lying deep in cushions, her cigarette tilted in her mouth, her hands clasped behind her head. When I ended, she frowned at me whimsically from beneath her drawn brows.
“But, you impracticable person, you might have foreseen all that. You didn’t need to cross the Atlantic to discover that a husband doesn’t let his wife be taken from him without making trouble.—— So you wouldn’t pay the price to get her! You’re a rotten reckoner, old boy, for a man who counts the cost of everything ahead.”
Her eye-lids flickered as her deep voice droned the words out.
“You should put all that in the past tense, Fiesole. I’m not counting anything to-night, penalties or pleasures. I’m just a man who’s wakened. I want something madly. Whatever it costs me or anybody else, I intend to get it.”
“You always wanted what you couldn’t have.”
She spoke lazily, blowing smoke-rings into the air, following them with her eyes and watching how they broke before they reached the ceiling. She appeared untouched by my emotion, as though nothing had been said that intimately concerned herself. She let her gaze wander, extending her lithe sweet length luxuriously, as though she had nothing to fear from my passion. I was crazed with desire, for all that I kept my tones quiet and steady. She maddened me with her indifference. It was all pretense—I knew it. She was playing a part with me, courting the inevitable, tempting me to reveal my hidden self. I watched her with clenched hands—suffering, yet finding fierce joy in the wonderful pride of her body. I would not have had her otherwise; the colder she appeared, the more I coveted her. I could have had her once for my wife, I reflected, had I chosen. I had tormented her; it was just that I should suffer.
The reticence of years fell away from me. I was kneeling at her side, kissing her unshod feet, her hands, her hair. Words tumbled from my lips, broken and unconsidered. I called her by foolish names such as are only used between lovers. I poured my heart out, speaking of the past and the future. I cursed myself, all the time repeating how I worshiped her—how I had loved her from a boy, but had come to know it only now.
And she gave no sign of response: neither forbidding, nor assenting; letting me have my way with her without acknowledging my presence; a quiet smile playing round her lips; as completely mistress of herself as is a statue.
I trembled into silence. She drooped forward, bending over me, just as she had done years ago in her uncle’s summer-house.
“My dear, there are things that are offered only once. Five years ago I asked you for all that you are now asking. You were afraid of the price, as you were with the other woman. You refused me.”
“But it’s marriage I’m asking.”
“Ah! Then I asked for less.—— I’m sorry. You ought to have gone when I told you. I felt that I should have to wound you.”
Her gentle dignity stung me into strength. My turbulence died down. As I knelt, I flung my arms around her body and drew her to me. She struggled to draw back, but I held her so closely that my lips were almost on her mouth.
“Listen, Fiesole, I’m unfair and I mean to be unfair. I was a brute to you once when I meant only to be honorable. To-night I’m not caring what I am. You despise me—you can go on despising me, but I’ll wear you out. I’ll make you come to love me even against your will. You’ll need me some day; I shall wait for that. I want to spend all my life for you; it’s the only thing I ask of life now. Wherever you go I shall follow you.”
I stopped, panting for breath. She had ceased to struggle. Her eyes were wide; her face hovered pale above me; she stared down at me powerless, yet with reckless challenge, breathing upon my mouth.
“You’re a rotter to come back like this,” she said hotly, “just when I was beginning to be happy. When you speak of marriage, you don’t know what you’re saying. You spoilt all that for me years ago at Venice. D’you think I’ll ever believe again in the honor and goodness of a man? You’ve come too late. Five years changes people. I’m a different woman now—not at all what you imagine.”
“You can be any kind of woman you choose, but you’re the woman I’m going to marry.”
“Then you haven’t heard what people say about me?”
“And I don’t care.”
“They say I’ve had lovers.”
“I don’t believe them.”
“What if I should tell you that I have?”
“I shouldn’t believe you.”
“You’d prefer to think that I’d lied to you rather than that I’d told you the truth?”
“It would make no difference. You’ve always loved me. You love me now. I know that you are pure.”
“And you would never doubt it? Never doubt it of a woman who dances every night, as I do, before the eyes of Paris?”
“Never.”
She gazed at me curiously, with tenderness and intentness. Her bosom shuddered; I saw the sob rising in her throat. When she spoke, the words came slowly; her eyes were misted over; she trembled as I clasped her.
“D’you know, I believe you’re the only living man who’d be fool enough to say that?”
“I was always a fool, Fiesole.”
I thought she would have kissed me, her lips came so near to mine. “But a dear fool, sometimes,” she whispered hoarsely; “a fool who always comes too late or too early—but a fool to the end.”
She stood up and my arms slipped down to her knees as I held her.
She laughed brokenly. “You nearly made me serious. It won’t do to be serious at three o’clock in the morning.”
“I won’t go till you’ve promised. Promise,” I urged.
She yawned. “I’m sleepy. You’ve worn me out.”
“But answer me before I go.”
She smiled down at me mockingly, ruffling my hair. “What a hurry he’s in after all these years. Don’t you ever go to bed?”
“Tell me to-night. I must know. I can’t bear the suspense.”
“I put up with it for five years.—— Well, if you won’t go home like a good boy, you won’t. There’s a couch over there.”
She broke from me, leaving me kneeling with my arms empty. As the door opened into the room beyond I had a glimpse of the curtained bed.
I drew my chair closer to the dying fire. Behind the wall I could hear her steps moving up and down as she undressed. Now and then they paused; she was listening for the sound of my departure, uncertain, perhaps, whether I was still there. Some time had elapsed when the door opened gently. I twisted round. Her room was in darkness. She was standing on the threshold. Her feet were bare; she was clad in a white night-robe; across each shoulder, almost to her knees, hung down the red-gold ropes of her braided hair.
“I meant what I said. I’m not going till you tell me.”
Her green eyes met mine roguishly. “A persistent fool to-night,” she said.
As the door was closing I threw after her, “That morning in Venice.... I was going to have asked you to marry me; you were gone....”
Left alone with the last flame flickering in the grate, I watched the little gold shoes.