Abbe Mouret's Transgression: Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The next morning Albine was anxious to start at sunrise upon the grand
expedition which she had planned the night before. She tapped her feet
gleefully on the ground, and declared that they would not come back
before nightfall.

'Where are you going to take me?' asked Serge.

'You will see, you will see.'

But he caught her by the hands and looked her very earnestly in the
face. 'You must not be foolish, you know. I won't have you hunting for
that glade of yours, or for the tree, or for the grassy couch where one
droops and dies. You know that it is forbidden.'

She blushed slightly, protesting that she had no such idea in her head.
Then she added: 'But if we should come across them, just by chance, you
know, and without really seeking them, you wouldn't mind sitting down,
would you? Else you must love me very little.'

They set off, going straight through the parterre without stopping to
watch the awakening of the flowers which were all dripping after their
dewy bath. The morning had a rosy hue, the smile of a beautiful child,
just opening its eyes on its snowy pillow.

'Where are you taking me?' repeated Serge.

But Albine only laughed and would not answer. Then, on reaching the
stream which ran through the garden at the end of the flower-beds, she
halted in great distress. The water was swollen with the late rains.

'We shall never be able to get across,' she murmured. 'I can generally
manage it by taking off my shoes and stockings, but, to-day, the water
would reach to our waists.'

They walked for a moment or two along the bank to find some fordable
point; but the girl said it was hopeless; she knew the stream quite
well. Once there had been a bridge across, but it had fallen in, and had
strewn the river bed with great blocks of stone, between which the water
rushed along in foaming eddies.

'Get on to my back, then,' said Serge.

'No, no; I'd rather not. If you were to slip, we should both of us get a
famous wetting. You don't know how treacherous those stones are.'

'Get on to my back,' repeated Serge.

She was tempted to do so. She stepped back for a spring, and then jumped
up, like a boy; but she felt that Serge was tottering; and crying out
that she was not safely seated, she got down again. However, after two
more attempts, she managed to settle herself securely on Serge's back.

'When you are quite ready,' said the young man, laughing, 'we will
start. Now, hold on tightly. We are off.'

And, with three light strides, he crossed the stream, scarcely wetting
even his toes. Midway, however, Albine thought that he was slipping. She
broke out into a little scream, and hugged him tightly round his neck.
But he sprang forward, and carried her at a gallop over the fine sand on
the other side.

'Gee up!' she cried, quite calm again, and delighted with this novel
game.

He ran along with her for some distance, she clucking her tongue, and
guiding him to right or left by some locks of his hair.

'Here--here we are,' she said at last, tapping him gently on the cheeks.

Then she jumped to the ground; while he, hot and perspiring, leaned
against a tree to draw breath. Albine thereupon began to scold him, and
threatened that she would not nurse him if he made himself ill again.

'Stuff!' he cried, 'it's done me good. When I have grown quite strong
again, I will carry you about all day. But where are you taking me?'

'Here,' she said, as she seated herself beneath a huge pear-tree.

They were in the old orchard of the park. A hawthorn hedge, a real wall
of greenery with here and there a gap, separated it from everything
else. There was quite a forest of fruit trees, which no pruning knife
had touched for a century past. Some of the trees had been strangely
warped and twisted by the storms which had raged over them; while
others, bossed all over with huge knots and full of deep holes, seemed
only to hold on to the soil with their bark. The high branches, bent
each year by weight of fruit, stretched out like big rackets; and each
tree helped to keep its fellows erect. The trunks were like twisted
pillars supporting a roof of greenery; and sometimes narrow cloisters,
sometimes light halls were formed, while now and again the verdure swept
almost to the ground and left scarcely room to pass. Round each colossus
a crowd of wild and self-sown saplings had grown up, thicket-like with
the entanglement of their young shoots. In the greenish light which
filtered like tinted water through the foliage, in the deep silence of
the mossy soil, one only heard the dull thud of the fruit as it was
culled by the wind.

And there were patriarchal apricot trees that bore their great age quite
bravely. Though decayed on one side, where they showed a perfect
scaffolding of dead wood, they were so youthful, so full of life, that,
on the other, young shoots were ever bursting through their rough bark.
There were cherry trees, that formed complete towns with houses of
several stories, that threw out staircases and floors of branches, big
enough for half a score of families. Then there were the apple trees,
with their limbs twisted like old cripples, with bark gnarled and
knotted, and all stained with lichen-growth. There were also smooth pear
trees, that shot up mast-like with long slender spars. And there were
rosy-blossomed peach-trees that won a place amid this teeming growth as
pretty maids do amidst a human crowd by dint of bright smiles and gentle
persistence. Some had been formerly trained as espaliers, but they had
broken down the low walls which had once supported them, and now spread
abroad in wild confusion, freed from the trammels of trellis work,
broken fragments of which still adhered to some of their branches. They
grew just as they listed, and resembled well-bred trees, once neat and
prim, which, having gone astray, now flaunted but vestiges of whilom
respectability. And from tree to tree, and from bough to bough, vine
branches hung in confusion. They rose like wild laughter, twined for an
instant round some lofty knot, then started off again with yet more
sonorous mirth, splotching all the foliage with the merry ebriety of
their tendrils. Their pale sun-gilt green set a glow of bacchanalianism
about the weather-worn heads of the old orchard giants.

Then towards the left were trees less thickly planted. Thin-foliaged
almonds allowed the sun's rays to pass and ripen the pumpkins, which
looked like moons that had fallen to the earth. Near the edge of a
stream which flowed through the orchard there also grew various kinds of
melons, some rough with knotty warts, some smooth and shining, as oval
as the eggs of ostriches. At every step, too, progress was barred by
currant bushes, showing limpid bunches of fruit, rubies in one and all
of which there sparkled liquid sunlight. And hedges of raspberry canes
shot up like wild brambles, while the ground was but a carpet of
strawberry plants, teeming with ripe berries which exhaled a slight
odour of vanilla.

But the enchanted corner of the orchard was still further to the left,
near a tier of rocks which there began to soar upwards. There you found
yourself in a veritable land of fire, in a natural hot-house, on which
the sun fell freely. At first, you had to make your way through huge,
ungainly fig trees, which stretched out grey branches like arms weary of
lying still, and whose villose leather-like foliage was so dense that in
order to pass one constantly had to snap off twigs that had sprouted
from the old wood. Next you passed on through groves of strawberry trees
with verdure like that of giant box-plants, and with scarlet berries
which suggested maize plants decked out with crimson ribbon. Then there
came a jungle of nettle-trees, medlars and jujube trees, which
pomegranates skirted with never-fading verdure. The fruit of the latter,
big as a child's fist, was scarcely set as yet; and the purple blossoms,
fluttering at the ends of the branches, looked like the palpitating
wings of the humming birds, which do not even bend the shoots on which
they perch. Lastly, there was a forest of orange and lemon trees growing
vigorously in the open air. Their straight trunks stood like rows of
brown columns, while their shiny leaves showed brightly against the blue
of the sky, and cast upon the ground a network of light and shadow,
figuring the palms of some Indian fabric. Here there was shade beside
which that of the European orchard seemed colourless, insipid; the warm
joy of sunlight, softened into flying gold-dust; the glad certainty of
evergreen foliage; the penetrating perfume of blossom, and the more
subdued fragrance of fruit; all helping to fill the body with the soft
languor of tropical lands.

'And now let us breakfast,' cried Albine, clapping her hands. 'It must
be at least nine o'clock, and I am very hungry.'

She had risen from the ground. Serge confessed that he, too, would find
some food acceptable.

'You goose!' she said, 'you didn't understand, then, that I brought you
here to breakfast. We sha'n't die of hunger here. We can help ourselves
to all there is.'

They went along under the trees, pushing aside the branches and making
their way to the thickest of the fruit. Albine, who went first, turned,
and in her flute-like voice asked her companion: 'What do you like best?
Pears, apricots, cherries, or currants? I warn you that the pears are
still green; but they are very nice all the same.'

Serge decided upon having cherries, and Albine agreed it would be as
well to start with them; but when she saw him foolishly beginning to
scramble up the first cherry tree he found, she made him go on for
another ten minutes through a frightful entanglement of branches. The
cherries on this tree, she said, were small and good for nothing; those
on that were sour; those on another would not be ripe for at least a
week. She knew all the trees.

'Stop, climb this one,' she said at last, as she stopped at the foot of
a tree, so heavily laden with fruit that clusters of it hung down to the
ground, like strings of coral beads.

Serge settled himself comfortably between two branches and began his
breakfast. He no longer paid attention to Albine. He imagined she was in
another tree, a few yards away, when, happening to cast his eyes towards
the ground, he saw her calmly lying on her back beneath him. She had
thrown herself there, and, without troubling herself to use her hands,
was plucking with her teeth the cherries which dangled over her mouth.

When she saw she was discovered, she broke out into a peal of laughter,
and twisted about on the grass like a fish taken from the water. And
finally, crawling along on her elbows, she gradually made the circuit of
the tree, snapping up the plumpest cherries as she went along.

'They tickle me so,' she cried. 'See, there's a beauty just fallen on my
neck. They are so deliciously fresh and juicy. They get into my ears, my
eyes, my nose, everywhere. They are much sweeter down here than up
there.'

'Ah!' said Serge, laughing, 'you say that because you daren't climb up.'

She remained for a moment silent with indignation. 'Daren't!--I!--' she
stammered.

Then, having gathered up her skirts, she tightly grasped the tree and
pulled herself up the trunk with a single effort of her strong wrists.
And afterwards she stepped lightly along the branches, scarcely using
her hands to steady herself. She had all the agile nimbleness of a
squirrel, and made her way onward, maintaining her equilibrium only by
the swaying poise of her body. When she was quite aloft at the end of a
frail branch, which shook dangerously beneath her weight, she cried;
'Now you see whether I daren't climb.'

'Come down at once,' implored Serge, full of alarm for her. 'I beg of
you to come down. You will be injuring yourself.'

But she, enjoying her triumph, began to mount still higher. She crawled
along to the extreme end of a branch, grasping its leaves in her hands
to maintain her hold.

'The branch will break!' cried Serge, thoroughly frightened.

'Let it break,' she answered, with a laugh; 'it will save me the trouble
of getting down.'

And the branch did break, but only slowly, with such deliberation that,
as it gradually settled towards the ground, it let Albine slip down in
very gentle fashion. She did not appear in the least degree frightened;
but gave herself a shake, and said: 'That was really nice. It was quite
like being in a carriage.'

Serge had jumped down from the tree to catch her in his arms. As he
stood there, quite pale from fright, she laughed at him. 'One tumbles
down from trees every day,' she exclaimed, 'but there is never any harm
done. Look more cheerful, you great stupid! Stay, just wet your finger
and rub it upon my neck. I have scratched it.'

Serge wetted his finger and touched her neck with it.

'There, I am all right again now,' she cried, as she bounded off. 'Let
us play at hide and seek, shall we?'

She was the first to hide. She disappeared, and presently from the
depths of the greenery, which she alone knew, and where Serge could not
possibly find her, she called, 'Cuckoo, cuckoo.' But this game of hide
and seek did not put a stop to the onslaught upon the fruit trees.
Breakfasting went on in all the nooks and corners where the two big
children sought each other. Albine, while gliding beneath the branches,
would stretch out her hand to pluck a green pear or fill her skirt with
apricots. Then in some of her lurking-places she would come upon such
rich discoveries as would make her careless of the game, content to sit
upon the ground and remain eating. Once, however, she lost sound of
Serge's movements. So, in her turn, she set about seeking him; and she
was surprised, almost vexed, when she discovered him under a plum-tree,
of whose existence she herself had been ignorant, and whose ripe fruit
had a delicious musky perfume. She soundly rated him. Did he want to eat
everything himself, that he hadn't called to her to come? He pretended
to know nothing about the trees, but he evidently had a very keen scent
to be able to find all the good things. She was especially indignant
with the poor tree itself--a stupid tree which no one had known of, and
which must have sprung up in the night on purpose to put people out. As
she stood there pouting, refusing to pluck a single plum, it occurred to
Serge to shake the tree violently. And then a shower, a regular hail, of
plums came down. Albine, standing in the midst of the downfall, received
plums on her arms, plums on her neck, plums on the very tip of her nose.
At this she could no longer restrain her laughter; she stood in the
midst of the deluge, crying 'More! more!' amused as she was by the round
bullet-like fruit which fell around her as she squatted there, with
hands and mouth open, and eyes closed.

It was a morning of childish play, of wild gambols in the Paradou.
Albine and Serge spent hours, scampering up and down, shouting and
sporting with each other, their thoughts still all innocence. And in
what a delicious spot they found themselves! Depths of greenery, with
undiscoverable hiding-places; paths, along whose windings it was never
possible to be serious, such greedy laughter fell from the very hedges.
In this happy orchard, there was such a playful straggling of bushes,
such fresh and appetising shade, such a wealth of old trees laden like
kindly grandfathers with sweet dainties. Even in the depths of the
recesses green with moss, beneath the broken trunks which compelled them
to creep the one behind the other, in the narrow leafy alleys, the young
folks never succumbed to the perilous reveries of silence. No trouble
touched them in that happy wood.

And when they had grown weary of the apricot-trees and the plum-trees
and the cherry-trees, they ran beneath the slender almond-trees; eating
green almonds, scarcely yet as big as peas, hunting for strawberries in
the grassy carpet, and regretting that the melons were not already ripe.
Albine finished by running as fast as she could go, pursued by Serge,
who was unable to overtake her. She rushed amongst the fig-trees,
leaping over their heavy branches, and pulling off the leaves to throw
them behind her in her companion's face. In a few strides she had
cleared the clumps of arbutus, whose red berries she tasted on her way;
and it was in the jungle of nettle-trees, medlars, and jujube-trees that
Serge lost her. At first he thought she was hiding behind a pomegranate;
but found that he had mistaken two clustering blossoms for the rosy
roundness of her wrists. Then he scoured the plantation of orange-trees,
rejoicing in their beauty and perfume, and thinking that he must have
reached the abode of the fairies of the sun. In the midst of them he
caught sight of Albine, who, not believing him so near her, was peering
inquisitively into the green depths.

'What are you looking for?' he cried. 'You know very well that is
forbidden.'

She sprang up hastily, and slightly blushed for the first time that day.
Then sitting down by the side of Serge, she told him of the fine times
there would be when the oranges should be ripe. The wood would then be
all golden, all bright with those round stars, dotting with yellow
sparks the arching green.

When at last they really set off homeward she halted at every
wild-growing fruit tree, and filled her pockets with sour pears and
bitter plums, saying that they world be good to eat on their way. They
would prove a hundred times more enjoyable than anything they had tasted
before. Serge was obliged to swallow some of them, in spite of the
grimaces he made at each bite. And eventually they found themselves
indoors again, tired out but feeling very happy.

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