Upright against the parapet, Hippolyte admired the spectacle, and saluted the brighter splendors with exclamations of delight. From time to time it spread over her person like the reflection of a fire."She is overexcited, a little inebriated, ready for any madness," thought George as he watched her. "I could suggest a walk, which she has often wanted to take: to go through one of the tunnels by the light of a torch. I would go down to the Trabocco to get a torch. She could wait for me at the end of the bridge. I would lead her then to the tunnel by a path that I know. I would manage that the train should come upon us while we were in the tunnel—foolhardiness, accident."The idea seemed to him easy of realization: it had presented itself to his imagination with extraordinary clearness, as if it had formed an integral part of his consciousness since that first day when, before the shining rails, he received the first confused glimmer from them. "She must die, too." His resolution became strengthened, immutable. He heard behind him the ticking of the clock. He felt a feeling of intense anxiety he could not master. It was getting late. Perhaps there was scarcely time for them to go down. He must act without delay, assure himself immediately as to the precise time indicated by the clock. But it seemed impossible for him to rise from his chair; it seemed to him that if he spoke to her carelessly, his speech would fail him.He started to his feet as he heard in the distance the well-known rumbling. Too late! And his heart beat so fast that he believed he would die of anguish as he heard the rumbling and whistling draw nearer.Hippolyte turned."The train!" she said. "Come and see!"He went; and she encircled his neck with her bare arm, leaning on his shoulder."It is entering the tunnel," she said again, prompted by the difference in sound.In George's ears the rumbling increased in a frightful manner. He saw, as in a hallucination, his mistress and himself beneath the dark roof, the rapid approach of the headlight in the dark, the short struggle on the rails, the simultaneous fall, the bodies crushed by the horrible violence; and, at the same time, he felt the contact of the supple woman, caressing, always triumphant. And, added to the physical horror of this barbarous destruction, he felt an exasperated rancor against her who seemed to escape his hate.Both leaning against the parapet, they watched the deafening train, rapid and sinister, that shook the house to its very foundations, and even imparted the shock to them."At night," said Hippolyte, pressing still closer to him, "I'm afraid when the train shakes the house as it passes. Aren't you, too? I have often felt you tremble."He did not hear her. An immense tumult stirred his whole being; it was the rudest and most obscure agitation that his soul had ever experienced. Incoherent thoughts and images whirled in his brain, and his heart writhed beneath a thousand cruel punctures. But one fixed image dominated all the others, invaded the centre of his soul. What was he doing at this hour five years before? He was holding vigil over a cadaver; he was contemplating a face hidden beneath a black veil, a long, pale hand——Hippolyte's restless hands touched him, crept into his hair, tickled his neck. On his neck, on his ear, he felt a warm mouth. With an instinctive motion that he could not repress, he drew aside, walked away. She laughed that singular laugh, ironical and immodest, which burst out and resounded from between her teeth whenever her lover refused himself to her. And under this obsession he heard once more the slow and limpid syllables: "For fear of my kisses!"A low crepitation, mingled with the distinct reports, still came from the festive town. The fireworks were beginning again.Hippolyte turned toward the spectacle."Look! One would think that Ortona were on fire."A vast crimson glare lit up the heavens and was reflected in the waters, and in the midst of the light the profile of the flaming town was outlined. The rockets burst overhead like splendid large roses."Shall I live through this night? Shall I recommence to live to-morrow? And how long?" A disgust, bitter as a nausea, an almost savage hate, arose from his heart at the thought that the following night he would again have that woman near him on the same pillow, that he would again hear the breathing of the sleeping woman, that he would again smell the odor and feel the contact of that heated skin, and then that the day would break again and pass by in the usual idleness, amidst the torture of perpetual alternatives.A burst of light struck him, attracted his gaze to the spectacle outside. A vast pink lunary light blossomed over the festive town, and yonder, on the shore, illuminated the succession of little indented bays and jutting points as far as the sight could reach. Cape Moro, the Nicchiola, the Trabocco, the rocks, near or distant, as far as the Vasto Point, appeared a few seconds in the immense irradiation."The promontory!" suggested a secret voice to George suddenly, while his gaze was carried to the heights crowned by the twisted olive-trees.The white light faded away. The distant town became silent, still outlined against the shadows by its illuminations. In the silence, George perceived again the oscillations of the pendulum and the rhythmic beats of the flax brake. But now he was master of his anguish; he felt himself stronger and his mind clearer."Shall we go out a little?" he asked Hippolyte, in a slightly changed voice. "We'll go to some spot in the open; we'll stretch ourselves out on the grass, and breath in the fresh air. Look! The night is almost as light as if it were full moon.""No, no; let us stay here!" she answered nonchalantly."It's not late. Are you sleepy already? I cannot go to bed too early, you know: I do not sleep, I suffer. I would gladly take a little walk. Come, do not be so lazy! You could come just as you are.""No, no; let us stay here."And, once more, she passed her bare arms around his neck, languishing, seized by desire."Let us stay here. Come indoors; let us lie down a little. Come!"She tried to coax him, to entice him, seized by desire that became all the fiercer as she noticed George's resistance. She was all ardor, and her beauty was at its best, illuminated as by a torch. Her long, serpentine body trembled through her thin wrapper. Her large dark eyes shed the fascinating charm of the supreme hours of passion. She was the sovereign Sensualism repeating: "I am forever the unconquered. I am stronger than your thought. The odor of my skin has the power to dissolve a world in you.""No, no; I do not want to," declared George, seizing her wrists with an almost brutal violence that he could not moderate."Ah! you don't want to?" she echoed mockingly, amused by the struggle, sure of conquering, incapable of giving way in her caprice.He regretted his roughness. To draw her into the snare, he must be mild and coaxing, must simulate ardor and tenderness. After that, he would certainly induce her to take the nocturnal walk—the last walk. But, on the other hand, he also felt the absolute necessity of not losing that nervous momentary energy that was indispensable for the approaching action."Ah! So you don't want to?" she repeated, throwing her bare arms about him, gazing up at him, looking into the depths of his eyes with a species of repressed frenzy.George permitted himself to be led into the room.Then all the Enemy's feline lasciviousness broke loose over him whom she believed already vanquished. She let down her hair, loosened her dress, permitted her natural perfume to be exhaled like a shrub of odoriferous flowers. She seemed to realize that she must disarm this man, that she must enervate him, and that she must crush him to prevent him from becoming dangerous.George felt he was lost. Once more the Enemy had asserted her superiority.Suddenly she was seized with laughter, nervous, frantic, ungovernable, lugubrious as the laughter of the insane.Frightened, he let her go. He looked at her with manifest horror, thinking, "Is this madness?"She laughed, laughed, laughed, writhing, hiding her face in her hands, biting her fingers, holding her sides; she laughed, laughed in spite of herself, shaken by long, sonorous hiccoughs.At intervals, she stopped for a second; then recommenced with renewed violence. And nothing was more lugubrious than these mad laughs in the silence of the magnificent night."Don't be afraid! Don't be afraid!" she said, during the pauses, at the sight of her perplexed and frightened lover. "I am calmer now. Go out, please. Please go out!"He went back on the loggia, as if in a dream. Nevertheless, his brain retained a strange lucidity and strange wakefulness. All his acts, all his perceptions had for him the unreality of a dream, and assumed at the same time a signification as profound as that of an allegory. He still heard behind him the ill-repressed laughter; he retained still in his fingers the sensation of the impure thing. He saw above and around him the beauty of the summer evening. He knew what was on the point of being accomplished.The laughs ceased. Again, in the silence, he perceived the vibrations of the pendulum and the beats of the flax brake on the distant area. A groan coming from the house of the old people made him shudder: it was the pain of her who was now in childbirth."All must be accomplished!" he thought.And, turning, he crossed the threshold with a firm step.Hippolyte lay upon the sofa, recomposed, pale, her eyes half-closed. At the approach of her lover, she smiled."Come, sit down!" she murmured, with a vague gesture.He bent over her, and saw tears between her eyelashes."Are you suffering?" he asked."I feel a slight suffocation. I have a weight here, as if a ball were rising and falling."She pointed to the centre of her chest. He said: "It is suffocating in this room. Make an effort, and get up. Let us go out. The air will do you good. Come!"He rose, and held out his hands. She gave him hers, and let him raise her. When on her feet, she shook her head to throw back her hair, which was still untied. Then she bent down to search for her lost hairpins."Where can they be?""What are you looking for?""My hairpins.""Let them be! You'll find them to-morrow.""But I need them to fasten my hair.""Leave your hair as it is. It pleases me that way."She smiled. They went out into the loggia. She raised her face towards the stars and breathed the perfume of the summer night."You see how beautiful the night is!" said George, in a hoarse yet gentle voice."They are beating the flax," said Hippolyte, listening attentively to the continuous rhythm."Let us go down," said George. "Let us walk a little. Let us go as far as the olive-trees, yonder."He seemed to hang on Hippolyte's lips."No, no. Let us remain here. You see in what a state I am!""What does that matter? Who will see you? We shall not meet a living soul at this hour. Come as you are. I'd go without my hat. The country is almost like a garden for us. Let us go down."She hesitated a few seconds. But she, too, felt the need of fresh air, of getting away from this house that still seemed to resound with the echo of her horrible laughs."Let us go down," she finally consented.At these words, George felt as if his heart had ceased to beat.With an instinctive movement he approached the threshold of the illuminated room. He cast toward the interior a look of anguish, a look of farewell. A hurricane of recollections arose in his distracted soul."Shall we leave the lamp lit?" he asked, without thinking of what he was saying.And his own voice gave him an indefinable sensation as of some distant and strange thing."Yes," answered Hippolyte.They went down.On the staircase they took each other by the hand, slowly descending step by step. George made so violent an effort to repress his anguish that the effort caused in him a strange exaltation. He considered the immensity of the nocturnal sky, and believed it to be filled by the intensity of his own life.They perceived on the parapet of the courtyard the shadow of a man, motionless and silent. They recognized old Colas."You here at this hour, Colas?" said Hippolyte. "Are you not sleepy?""I am keeping vigil for Candia, who is in childbirth," responded the old man."And is everything going well?""Yes, very well."The door of the habitation was lit up."Wait a minute," said Hippolyte. "I want to see Candia.""No, do not go there now," begged George. "You will see her on your return.""That is so; I will see her on my return. Good-by, Colas."She stumbled as she entered the path."Take care," cautioned the shadow of the old man.George offered her his arm."Do you want to lean on me?"She took George's arm.They walked several steps in silence.The night was bright, glorious in all directions. The Great Bear shone on their heads in all its sextuple mystery. Silent and pure as the heaven above, the Adriatic gave as the only indication of its existence its respiration and its perfume."Why do you hurry so?" asked Hippolyte.George slowed down his step. Dominated by a single thought, pursued by the necessity of the act, he had only a confused consciousness for everything else. His inner life seemed to disintegrate, to decompose, to dissolve in a heavy fermentation that invaded even the deepest depths of his being, and brought to the surface shapeless fragments, of diverse nature, as little recognizable as if they had not belonged to the life of the same man.All these strange, inextricable, abrupt, violent things he vaguely perceived, as if in a half-slumber, while at the same time one single point in his brain retained an extraordinary lucidity, and, in a rigid line, guided him toward the fatal act."How melancholy the sound of the flax brake in that field is," said Hippolyte, stopping. "All night long they beat the flax. Does that not make you feel melancholy?"She abandoned herself on George's arm, brushed his cheek with her tresses."Do you recall, at Albano, the pavers who were beating the pavement from morning to night beneath our window?"Her voice was veiled with sadness, somewhat tired."We became accustomed to that noise."She stopped, restless."Why do you keep turning around?""It seems to me that I hear a man walking barefoot," responded George in a low voice. "Let us stop."They stopped, listened.George was under the empire of the same horror that had frozen him in front of the door of the funereal chamber. All his being trembled, fascinated by the mystery; he seemed to have already crossed the confines of an unknown world."It is Giardino," said Hippolyte, on perceiving the dog, which approached. "He has followed us."And, several times, she called the faithful animal, which came running up friskily. She bent down to caress him, spoke to him in the special tone she habitually used when she petted animals she was fond of."You never leave your friend, do you? You never leave her?"The grateful animal rolled in the dust.George made a few steps. He felt a great relief on feeling himself free from Hippolyte's arm; up to now, this contact had given him an indefinable physical uneasiness. He imagined the sudden and violent act he was about to accomplish; he imagined the mortal embrace of his arms around the body of this woman, and he would have liked to touch her only at the supreme instant."Come, come; we'll soon be there," he said, preceding her in the direction of the olive-trees, whitened by the moonlight and stars.He halted on the edge of the plateau, and turned around to assure himself that she was following him. Once more he gazed around him distractedly, as if to embrace the image of the night. It seemed to him that, on this plateau, the silence had become more profound. Only the rhythmic beats of the flax brake could be heard from the distant fields."Come!" he repeated in a clear voice, strengthened by a sudden energy.And, passing between the twisted trunks, feeling beneath his feet the softness of the grass, he directed his steps towards the edge of the precipice.This edge formed a circular projection, entirely free in every direction, without any kind of railing. George pressed his hands on his knees, bent his body forward on this support, and advanced his head cautiously. He examined the rocks below him; he saw a corner of the sandy beach. The little corpse stretched out on the sand reappeared to him. There appeared to him also the blackish spot he had seen with Hippolyte from the heights of the Pincio, at the foot of the wall; and he heard again the answers of the teamster to the greenish-looking man; and, confusedly, all the phantoms of that distant afternoon repassed before his soul."Take care!" cried Hippolyte, as she came up to him. "Take care!"The dog barked among the olive-trees."Do you hear me, George? Come away!"The promontory fell perpendicularly down to the black and deserted rocks, around which the water scarcely moved, splashing feebly, rocking in its slow undulations the reflections of the stars."George! George!""Have no fear!" he said in a hoarse voice. "Come nearer! Come! Come and see the fishermen, fishing by torchlight among the rocks.""No, no! I am afraid of vertigo.""Come! I will hold you.""No, no."She seemed frozen by the unusual tone in George's voice, and a vague fright commenced to invade her."Come!"And he approached her, his hands extended. Suddenly he seized her wrists, dragged her several steps; then he seized her in his arms, made a bound, and attempted to force her towards the abyss."No! no! no!"She resisted with furious energy.She succeeded in disengaging herself, jumped back, panting and trembling."Are you mad?" she cried, choked by anger. "Are you mad?"But when she saw him come after her without speaking a word, when she felt herself seized with more brutal violence and dragged again toward the precipice, she understood all, and a great, sinister flash of light struck terror to her soul."No, George, no! Let me be! Let me be! Only one minute! Listen! Listen! One minute! I want to tell you——"Insane with terror, she supplicated him, writhing. She hoped to stop him, to move him to pity."One minute! Listen! I love you! Forgive me! Forgive me!"She stammered incoherent words desperately, feeling herself becoming weaker, losing her ground, seeing death before her."Assassin!" she then shrieked, furious.And she defended herself with her nails, with her teeth, like a beast."Assassin!" she shrieked, as she was seized by the hair, thrown to the ground on the edge of the precipice, lost.The dog barked at the tragic group.It was a brief and fierce struggle, like the sudden outburst of supreme hate which, up to then, had been smouldering, unsuspected, in the hearts of implacable enemies.And they both crashed down to death, clasped in each other's arms.* * * * * * * *SOME FINE NOVELSLately Published byGEO. H. RICHMOND & Co.12 East 15th St., New YorkDAYBREAKBy JAMES COWANA Romance of an Old World. With illustrations by WALTER C. GREENOUGH.12mo, cloth extra, gilt top, $1.50.* * * * *RED AND BLACKBy MARIE-HENRI BEYLE ("De Stendhal")Translated from the French by E. P. ROBINS. With 18 etchings by DUBOUCHET, etched by G. MERCIER.3 vols., 16mo, cloth extra, gilt tops, uncut.* * * * *LA CHARTREUSE DE PARMEBy MARIE-HENRI BEYLE ("De Stendhal")Translated from the French by E. P. ROBINS. Illustrated with 32 etchings by G. MERCIER from designs by N. FOULQUIER, and with a portrait of the author.3 vols., 16mo, cloth, extra, gilt tops, uncut.* * * * *TALES FROM A MOTHER-OF-PEARL CASKETBy ANATOLE FRANCETranslated by HENRI PÈNE DU BOIS.l6mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25.* * * * *THE FOOL AND HIS HEARTBy F. NORREYS CONNELLBeing the Plainly Told Story of Basil Thimm.Crown 8vo, cloth, uncut, $1.50.* * * * *YELLOW PINE BASINBy HENRY G. CATLINThe Story of a Prospector.12mo, cloth extra, gilt top, $1.35.*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE TRIUMPH OF DEATH***
Upright against the parapet, Hippolyte admired the spectacle, and saluted the brighter splendors with exclamations of delight. From time to time it spread over her person like the reflection of a fire.
"She is overexcited, a little inebriated, ready for any madness," thought George as he watched her. "I could suggest a walk, which she has often wanted to take: to go through one of the tunnels by the light of a torch. I would go down to the Trabocco to get a torch. She could wait for me at the end of the bridge. I would lead her then to the tunnel by a path that I know. I would manage that the train should come upon us while we were in the tunnel—foolhardiness, accident."
The idea seemed to him easy of realization: it had presented itself to his imagination with extraordinary clearness, as if it had formed an integral part of his consciousness since that first day when, before the shining rails, he received the first confused glimmer from them. "She must die, too." His resolution became strengthened, immutable. He heard behind him the ticking of the clock. He felt a feeling of intense anxiety he could not master. It was getting late. Perhaps there was scarcely time for them to go down. He must act without delay, assure himself immediately as to the precise time indicated by the clock. But it seemed impossible for him to rise from his chair; it seemed to him that if he spoke to her carelessly, his speech would fail him.
He started to his feet as he heard in the distance the well-known rumbling. Too late! And his heart beat so fast that he believed he would die of anguish as he heard the rumbling and whistling draw nearer.
Hippolyte turned.
"The train!" she said. "Come and see!"
He went; and she encircled his neck with her bare arm, leaning on his shoulder.
"It is entering the tunnel," she said again, prompted by the difference in sound.
In George's ears the rumbling increased in a frightful manner. He saw, as in a hallucination, his mistress and himself beneath the dark roof, the rapid approach of the headlight in the dark, the short struggle on the rails, the simultaneous fall, the bodies crushed by the horrible violence; and, at the same time, he felt the contact of the supple woman, caressing, always triumphant. And, added to the physical horror of this barbarous destruction, he felt an exasperated rancor against her who seemed to escape his hate.
Both leaning against the parapet, they watched the deafening train, rapid and sinister, that shook the house to its very foundations, and even imparted the shock to them.
"At night," said Hippolyte, pressing still closer to him, "I'm afraid when the train shakes the house as it passes. Aren't you, too? I have often felt you tremble."
He did not hear her. An immense tumult stirred his whole being; it was the rudest and most obscure agitation that his soul had ever experienced. Incoherent thoughts and images whirled in his brain, and his heart writhed beneath a thousand cruel punctures. But one fixed image dominated all the others, invaded the centre of his soul. What was he doing at this hour five years before? He was holding vigil over a cadaver; he was contemplating a face hidden beneath a black veil, a long, pale hand——
Hippolyte's restless hands touched him, crept into his hair, tickled his neck. On his neck, on his ear, he felt a warm mouth. With an instinctive motion that he could not repress, he drew aside, walked away. She laughed that singular laugh, ironical and immodest, which burst out and resounded from between her teeth whenever her lover refused himself to her. And under this obsession he heard once more the slow and limpid syllables: "For fear of my kisses!"
A low crepitation, mingled with the distinct reports, still came from the festive town. The fireworks were beginning again.
Hippolyte turned toward the spectacle.
"Look! One would think that Ortona were on fire."
A vast crimson glare lit up the heavens and was reflected in the waters, and in the midst of the light the profile of the flaming town was outlined. The rockets burst overhead like splendid large roses.
"Shall I live through this night? Shall I recommence to live to-morrow? And how long?" A disgust, bitter as a nausea, an almost savage hate, arose from his heart at the thought that the following night he would again have that woman near him on the same pillow, that he would again hear the breathing of the sleeping woman, that he would again smell the odor and feel the contact of that heated skin, and then that the day would break again and pass by in the usual idleness, amidst the torture of perpetual alternatives.
A burst of light struck him, attracted his gaze to the spectacle outside. A vast pink lunary light blossomed over the festive town, and yonder, on the shore, illuminated the succession of little indented bays and jutting points as far as the sight could reach. Cape Moro, the Nicchiola, the Trabocco, the rocks, near or distant, as far as the Vasto Point, appeared a few seconds in the immense irradiation.
"The promontory!" suggested a secret voice to George suddenly, while his gaze was carried to the heights crowned by the twisted olive-trees.
The white light faded away. The distant town became silent, still outlined against the shadows by its illuminations. In the silence, George perceived again the oscillations of the pendulum and the rhythmic beats of the flax brake. But now he was master of his anguish; he felt himself stronger and his mind clearer.
"Shall we go out a little?" he asked Hippolyte, in a slightly changed voice. "We'll go to some spot in the open; we'll stretch ourselves out on the grass, and breath in the fresh air. Look! The night is almost as light as if it were full moon."
"No, no; let us stay here!" she answered nonchalantly.
"It's not late. Are you sleepy already? I cannot go to bed too early, you know: I do not sleep, I suffer. I would gladly take a little walk. Come, do not be so lazy! You could come just as you are."
"No, no; let us stay here."
And, once more, she passed her bare arms around his neck, languishing, seized by desire.
"Let us stay here. Come indoors; let us lie down a little. Come!"
She tried to coax him, to entice him, seized by desire that became all the fiercer as she noticed George's resistance. She was all ardor, and her beauty was at its best, illuminated as by a torch. Her long, serpentine body trembled through her thin wrapper. Her large dark eyes shed the fascinating charm of the supreme hours of passion. She was the sovereign Sensualism repeating: "I am forever the unconquered. I am stronger than your thought. The odor of my skin has the power to dissolve a world in you."
"No, no; I do not want to," declared George, seizing her wrists with an almost brutal violence that he could not moderate.
"Ah! you don't want to?" she echoed mockingly, amused by the struggle, sure of conquering, incapable of giving way in her caprice.
He regretted his roughness. To draw her into the snare, he must be mild and coaxing, must simulate ardor and tenderness. After that, he would certainly induce her to take the nocturnal walk—the last walk. But, on the other hand, he also felt the absolute necessity of not losing that nervous momentary energy that was indispensable for the approaching action.
"Ah! So you don't want to?" she repeated, throwing her bare arms about him, gazing up at him, looking into the depths of his eyes with a species of repressed frenzy.
George permitted himself to be led into the room.
Then all the Enemy's feline lasciviousness broke loose over him whom she believed already vanquished. She let down her hair, loosened her dress, permitted her natural perfume to be exhaled like a shrub of odoriferous flowers. She seemed to realize that she must disarm this man, that she must enervate him, and that she must crush him to prevent him from becoming dangerous.
George felt he was lost. Once more the Enemy had asserted her superiority.
Suddenly she was seized with laughter, nervous, frantic, ungovernable, lugubrious as the laughter of the insane.
Frightened, he let her go. He looked at her with manifest horror, thinking, "Is this madness?"
She laughed, laughed, laughed, writhing, hiding her face in her hands, biting her fingers, holding her sides; she laughed, laughed in spite of herself, shaken by long, sonorous hiccoughs.
At intervals, she stopped for a second; then recommenced with renewed violence. And nothing was more lugubrious than these mad laughs in the silence of the magnificent night.
"Don't be afraid! Don't be afraid!" she said, during the pauses, at the sight of her perplexed and frightened lover. "I am calmer now. Go out, please. Please go out!"
He went back on the loggia, as if in a dream. Nevertheless, his brain retained a strange lucidity and strange wakefulness. All his acts, all his perceptions had for him the unreality of a dream, and assumed at the same time a signification as profound as that of an allegory. He still heard behind him the ill-repressed laughter; he retained still in his fingers the sensation of the impure thing. He saw above and around him the beauty of the summer evening. He knew what was on the point of being accomplished.
The laughs ceased. Again, in the silence, he perceived the vibrations of the pendulum and the beats of the flax brake on the distant area. A groan coming from the house of the old people made him shudder: it was the pain of her who was now in childbirth.
"All must be accomplished!" he thought.
And, turning, he crossed the threshold with a firm step.
Hippolyte lay upon the sofa, recomposed, pale, her eyes half-closed. At the approach of her lover, she smiled.
"Come, sit down!" she murmured, with a vague gesture.
He bent over her, and saw tears between her eyelashes.
"Are you suffering?" he asked.
"I feel a slight suffocation. I have a weight here, as if a ball were rising and falling."
She pointed to the centre of her chest. He said: "It is suffocating in this room. Make an effort, and get up. Let us go out. The air will do you good. Come!"
He rose, and held out his hands. She gave him hers, and let him raise her. When on her feet, she shook her head to throw back her hair, which was still untied. Then she bent down to search for her lost hairpins.
"Where can they be?"
"What are you looking for?"
"My hairpins."
"Let them be! You'll find them to-morrow."
"But I need them to fasten my hair."
"Leave your hair as it is. It pleases me that way."
She smiled. They went out into the loggia. She raised her face towards the stars and breathed the perfume of the summer night.
"You see how beautiful the night is!" said George, in a hoarse yet gentle voice.
"They are beating the flax," said Hippolyte, listening attentively to the continuous rhythm.
"Let us go down," said George. "Let us walk a little. Let us go as far as the olive-trees, yonder."
He seemed to hang on Hippolyte's lips.
"No, no. Let us remain here. You see in what a state I am!"
"What does that matter? Who will see you? We shall not meet a living soul at this hour. Come as you are. I'd go without my hat. The country is almost like a garden for us. Let us go down."
She hesitated a few seconds. But she, too, felt the need of fresh air, of getting away from this house that still seemed to resound with the echo of her horrible laughs.
"Let us go down," she finally consented.
At these words, George felt as if his heart had ceased to beat.
With an instinctive movement he approached the threshold of the illuminated room. He cast toward the interior a look of anguish, a look of farewell. A hurricane of recollections arose in his distracted soul.
"Shall we leave the lamp lit?" he asked, without thinking of what he was saying.
And his own voice gave him an indefinable sensation as of some distant and strange thing.
"Yes," answered Hippolyte.
They went down.
On the staircase they took each other by the hand, slowly descending step by step. George made so violent an effort to repress his anguish that the effort caused in him a strange exaltation. He considered the immensity of the nocturnal sky, and believed it to be filled by the intensity of his own life.
They perceived on the parapet of the courtyard the shadow of a man, motionless and silent. They recognized old Colas.
"You here at this hour, Colas?" said Hippolyte. "Are you not sleepy?"
"I am keeping vigil for Candia, who is in childbirth," responded the old man.
"And is everything going well?"
"Yes, very well."
The door of the habitation was lit up.
"Wait a minute," said Hippolyte. "I want to see Candia."
"No, do not go there now," begged George. "You will see her on your return."
"That is so; I will see her on my return. Good-by, Colas."
She stumbled as she entered the path.
"Take care," cautioned the shadow of the old man.
George offered her his arm.
"Do you want to lean on me?"
She took George's arm.
They walked several steps in silence.
The night was bright, glorious in all directions. The Great Bear shone on their heads in all its sextuple mystery. Silent and pure as the heaven above, the Adriatic gave as the only indication of its existence its respiration and its perfume.
"Why do you hurry so?" asked Hippolyte.
George slowed down his step. Dominated by a single thought, pursued by the necessity of the act, he had only a confused consciousness for everything else. His inner life seemed to disintegrate, to decompose, to dissolve in a heavy fermentation that invaded even the deepest depths of his being, and brought to the surface shapeless fragments, of diverse nature, as little recognizable as if they had not belonged to the life of the same man.
All these strange, inextricable, abrupt, violent things he vaguely perceived, as if in a half-slumber, while at the same time one single point in his brain retained an extraordinary lucidity, and, in a rigid line, guided him toward the fatal act.
"How melancholy the sound of the flax brake in that field is," said Hippolyte, stopping. "All night long they beat the flax. Does that not make you feel melancholy?"
She abandoned herself on George's arm, brushed his cheek with her tresses.
"Do you recall, at Albano, the pavers who were beating the pavement from morning to night beneath our window?"
Her voice was veiled with sadness, somewhat tired.
"We became accustomed to that noise."
She stopped, restless.
"Why do you keep turning around?"
"It seems to me that I hear a man walking barefoot," responded George in a low voice. "Let us stop."
They stopped, listened.
George was under the empire of the same horror that had frozen him in front of the door of the funereal chamber. All his being trembled, fascinated by the mystery; he seemed to have already crossed the confines of an unknown world.
"It is Giardino," said Hippolyte, on perceiving the dog, which approached. "He has followed us."
And, several times, she called the faithful animal, which came running up friskily. She bent down to caress him, spoke to him in the special tone she habitually used when she petted animals she was fond of.
"You never leave your friend, do you? You never leave her?"
The grateful animal rolled in the dust.
George made a few steps. He felt a great relief on feeling himself free from Hippolyte's arm; up to now, this contact had given him an indefinable physical uneasiness. He imagined the sudden and violent act he was about to accomplish; he imagined the mortal embrace of his arms around the body of this woman, and he would have liked to touch her only at the supreme instant.
"Come, come; we'll soon be there," he said, preceding her in the direction of the olive-trees, whitened by the moonlight and stars.
He halted on the edge of the plateau, and turned around to assure himself that she was following him. Once more he gazed around him distractedly, as if to embrace the image of the night. It seemed to him that, on this plateau, the silence had become more profound. Only the rhythmic beats of the flax brake could be heard from the distant fields.
"Come!" he repeated in a clear voice, strengthened by a sudden energy.
And, passing between the twisted trunks, feeling beneath his feet the softness of the grass, he directed his steps towards the edge of the precipice.
This edge formed a circular projection, entirely free in every direction, without any kind of railing. George pressed his hands on his knees, bent his body forward on this support, and advanced his head cautiously. He examined the rocks below him; he saw a corner of the sandy beach. The little corpse stretched out on the sand reappeared to him. There appeared to him also the blackish spot he had seen with Hippolyte from the heights of the Pincio, at the foot of the wall; and he heard again the answers of the teamster to the greenish-looking man; and, confusedly, all the phantoms of that distant afternoon repassed before his soul.
"Take care!" cried Hippolyte, as she came up to him. "Take care!"
The dog barked among the olive-trees.
"Do you hear me, George? Come away!"
The promontory fell perpendicularly down to the black and deserted rocks, around which the water scarcely moved, splashing feebly, rocking in its slow undulations the reflections of the stars.
"George! George!"
"Have no fear!" he said in a hoarse voice. "Come nearer! Come! Come and see the fishermen, fishing by torchlight among the rocks."
"No, no! I am afraid of vertigo."
"Come! I will hold you."
"No, no."
She seemed frozen by the unusual tone in George's voice, and a vague fright commenced to invade her.
"Come!"
And he approached her, his hands extended. Suddenly he seized her wrists, dragged her several steps; then he seized her in his arms, made a bound, and attempted to force her towards the abyss.
"No! no! no!"
She resisted with furious energy.
She succeeded in disengaging herself, jumped back, panting and trembling.
"Are you mad?" she cried, choked by anger. "Are you mad?"
But when she saw him come after her without speaking a word, when she felt herself seized with more brutal violence and dragged again toward the precipice, she understood all, and a great, sinister flash of light struck terror to her soul.
"No, George, no! Let me be! Let me be! Only one minute! Listen! Listen! One minute! I want to tell you——"
Insane with terror, she supplicated him, writhing. She hoped to stop him, to move him to pity.
"One minute! Listen! I love you! Forgive me! Forgive me!"
She stammered incoherent words desperately, feeling herself becoming weaker, losing her ground, seeing death before her.
"Assassin!" she then shrieked, furious.
And she defended herself with her nails, with her teeth, like a beast.
"Assassin!" she shrieked, as she was seized by the hair, thrown to the ground on the edge of the precipice, lost.
The dog barked at the tragic group.
It was a brief and fierce struggle, like the sudden outburst of supreme hate which, up to then, had been smouldering, unsuspected, in the hearts of implacable enemies.
And they both crashed down to death, clasped in each other's arms.
* * * * * * * *
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LA CHARTREUSE DE PARME
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The Story of a Prospector.
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*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE TRIUMPH OF DEATH***