WITH Lily’s marriage and the end of the war, the house in Rue Raynouard regained something of its old life and gaiety. For M. de Cyon, the match was one surrounded by advantages. His wife was rich and beautiful. She had superb taste. She spoke excellent French and yet she was an American and thus provided a bond with the powerful nation whose favor was invaluable to every nation of Europe. His friends were charmed by her, for she had a way of listening to them, of drinking in their talk with a breathless air. Therefore they declared her not only beautiful but clever, a distinction which even Lily had never claimed. The world knew only that she was an American widow, wealthy, distinguished, beautiful, who had lived very quietly in Paris for more than twenty years. None knew anything against her. Indeed the only person who knew her story was dead, shot in the dungheaps of a French barnyard.
Yet there was, as people said, something about Lily de Cyon that aroused curiosity, even a tenuous suspicion. Somehow she did not fit the story of a quiet existence among the dowdy friends of Madame Gigon. She appeared to have mysterious resources, of instinct, of knowledge, of mystery. Enfin! She was a fascinating woman.
The strange gift of the crazy Madame Blaise appeared no longer to fill her with horror; for The Girl in the Hat and The Byzantine Empress were brought down from their hiding place in the dusty garret of Numero Dix and hung on either side of the flaming Venice of Mr. Turner. They were greatly admired by the painters whom Paul Schneidermann brought to the house. Some attributed them to Ingres, but none was certain. It was impossible to say who had painted them for they bore no signature. There were some who believed that they were the only great pictures of an obscure artist whosesolitary rise from mediocrity came through the inspiration of a woman, a marvelously beautiful woman with dark amber hair and green white skin.
In the spring of 1920, the postman left with the concierge of Numero Dix a thin letter bordered in black bearing the postmark of Lisieux. It contained only a line or two, the mere mention of the death of Sister Monica. She was buried within the walls of the convent which she had not left in more than thirteen years.
THE pavilion in the garden Lily gave to M. de Cyon for a study. Here it was her habit to meet him daily on his return from the Ministry when his motor, a gift from her, left him at the gate on the Rue de Passy.
One bright October day of the same year, she went as usual to the pavilion to amuse herself until he arrived by reading the newspapers which were placed upon his table. They lay in a neat pile ... Le Journal de Genève, Il Seccolo of Milan, La Tribuna of Roma, the London Post, the London Times, Le Figaro, L’Echo de Paris, Le Petit Parisien, Le Matin, L’Oeuvre.
She skimmed through them, reading snatches of news, of the opera, and the theater, of society, of politics, of races, the personals in the London Times ... this or that, whatever caught her fancy.
In the drawing-room Ellen and Jean, with his crutches by his side, sat at the piano playing with four hands snatches of music from the operettas of the moment, from Phi-Phi and La Reine Joyeuse. They sang and laughed as they played. The sound of their gaiety drifted out across the garden.
Lily read the journals until she grew bored. Something had delayed M. de Cyon. Already he was late by half an hour. She came at last, languidly, to the bottom of the pile, to L’Oeuvre which lay buried beneath the more pompous and expensive papers. This she never read because it was a socialist daily and therefore dull. Doubtless she would have passed it by again for the hundredth time but a name, buried in one corner in the smallest of print, caught her attention. It must have struck her suddenly with all the force of a blow in the face, for she closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. The paper slipped to the floor forgotten.
It was a brief paragraph, not more than three or four lines. It recounted the death of one Stepan Krylenko, a man well known as a leader in international labor circles. He died, according to the despatch, of typhus in Moscow whither he had been deported by the American government.
(Perhaps, after all, the Uhlan was right. The Monster would devour them all in the end.)
After a time Lily rose and went out of the pavilion into the garden where she walked slowly up and down for a long time, seating herself at last on the bench under the laburnum tree.
Inside the house the wild merriment persisted. Ellen was singing now in a rich contralto voice a valse which she played with an exaggerated sweep of sentimentality. From the peak of her hard and cynical intelligence, she mocked the song. She sang,
“O, la troublante voluptéde la première etreintequ’on risque avec timiditéet presque avec contrainteLe contact vous fait frisonner....”
“O, la troublante voluptéde la première etreintequ’on risque avec timiditéet presque avec contrainteLe contact vous fait frisonner....”
“O, la troublante voluptéde la première etreintequ’on risque avec timiditéet presque avec contrainteLe contact vous fait frisonner....”
In a wild burst of mocking laughter, the song came abruptly to an end. The shattered chords floated out into the garden where Lily sat leaning against the laburnum tree, silent and thoughtful, her eyes filled with sorrow and wonder. She was in that moment more beautiful than she had ever been before ... a symbol of that which is above all else eternal, which knows no bonds, which survives cities and mills and even nations, which is in itself the beginning and end of all things, without which the world itself must fail.
And presently, far down among the plane trees, the gate in the high wall swung gently open and, against the distant lights of the Rue de Passy, the figure of the white haired M. de Cyon came into the garden.
THE END
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:Miss Abercombie sighed deeply=> Miss Abercrombie sighed deeply {pg 116}feminine stubborness=> feminine stubborness {pg 198Guermantes’soireés=> Guermantes’soirées{pg 210}Who it it=> Who is it {pg 260}
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
Miss Abercombie sighed deeply=> Miss Abercrombie sighed deeply {pg 116}
feminine stubborness=> feminine stubborness {pg 198
Guermantes’soireés=> Guermantes’soirées{pg 210}
Who it it=> Who is it {pg 260}