Abbe Mouret's Transgression: Chapter 12

Chapter 12

For the next few days Albine and Serge experienced a feeling of
embarrassment. They avoided all allusion to their walk beneath the
trees. They had not again kissed each other, or repeated their
confession of love. It was not any feeling of shame which had sealed
their lips, but rather a fear of in any way spoiling their happiness.
When they were apart, they lived upon the dear recollection of love's
awakening, plunged into it, passed once more through the happy hours
which they had spent, with their arms around each other's waist, and
their faces close together. It all ended by throwing them both into a
feverish state. They looked at each other with heavy eyes, and talked,
in a melancholy mood, of things that did not interest them in the least.
Then, after a long interval of silence, Serge would say to Albine in a
tone full of anxiety: 'You are ill?'

But she shook her head as she answered, 'No, no. It is you who are not
well; your hands are burning.'

The thought of the park filled them with vague uneasiness which they
could not understand. They felt that danger lurked for them in some
by-path, and would seize them and do them hurt. They never spoke about
these disquieting thoughts, but certain timid glances revealed to them
the mutual anguish which held them apart as though they were foes. One
morning, however, Albine ventured, after much hesitation, to say to
Serge: 'It is wrong of you to keep always indoors. You will fall ill
again.'

Serge laughed in rather an embarrassed way. 'Bah!' he muttered, 'we have
been everywhere, we know all the garden by heart.'

But Albine shook her head, and in a whisper replied, 'No, no, we don't
know the rocks, we have never been to the springs. It was there that I
warmed myself last winter. There are some nooks where the stones seem to
be actually alive.'

The next morning, without having said another word on the subject, they
set out together. They climbed up to the left behind the grotto where
the marble woman lay slumbering; and as they set foot on the lowest
stones, Serge remarked: 'We must see everything. Perhaps we shall feel
quieter afterwards.'

The day was very hot, there was thunder in the air. They had not
ventured to clasp each other's waist; but stepped along, one behind the
other, glowing beneath the sunlight. Albine took advantage of a widening
of the path to let Serge go on in front; for the warmth of his breath
upon her neck troubled her. All around them the rocks arose in broad
tiers, storeys of huge flags, bristling with coarse vegetation. They
first came upon golden gorse, clumps of sage, thyme, lavender, and other
balsamic plants, with sour-berried juniper trees and bitter rosemary,
whose strong scent made them dizzy. Here and there the path was hemmed
in by holly, that grew in quaint forms like cunningly wrought metal
work, gratings of blackened bronze, wrought iron, and polished copper,
elaborately ornamented, covered with prickly _rosaces_. And before
reaching the springs, they had to pass through a pine-wood. Its shadow
seemed to weigh upon their shoulders like lead. The dry needles crackled
beneath their feet, throwing up a light resinous dust which burned their
lips.

'Your garden doesn't make itself very agreeable just here,' said Serge,
turning towards Albine.

They smiled at each other. They were now near the edge of the springs.
The sight of the clear waters brought them relief. Yet these springs did
not hide beneath a covering of verdure, like those that bubble up on the
plains and set thick foliage growing around them that they may slumber
idly in the shade. They shot up in the full light of day from a cavity
in the rock, without a blade of grass near by to tinge the clear water
with green. Steeped in the sunshine they looked silvery. In their depths
the sun beat against the sand in a breathing living dust of light. And
they darted out of their basin like arms of purest white, they rebounded
like nude infants at play, and then suddenly leapt down in a waterfall
whose curve suggested a woman's breast.

'Dip your hands in,' cried Albine; 'the water is icy cold at the
bottom.'

They were indeed able to refresh their hot hands. They threw water over
their faces too, and lingered there amidst the spray which rose up from
the streaming springs.

'Look,' cried Albine; 'look, there is the garden, and there are the
meadows and the forest.'

For a moment they looked at the Paradou spread out beneath their feet.

'And you see,' she added, 'there isn't the least sign of any wall. The
whole country belongs to us, right up to the sky.'

By this time, almost unawares, they had slipped their arms round each
other's waist. The coolness of the springs had soothed their feverish
disquietude. But just as they were going away, Albine seemed to recall
something and led Serge back again, saying:

'Down there, below the rocks, a long time ago, I once saw the wall.'

'But there is nothing to be seen,' replied Serge, turning a little pale.

'Yes, yes; it must be behind that avenue of chestnut trees on the other
side of those bushes.'

Then, on feeling Serge's arm tremble, she added: 'But perhaps I am
mistaken. . . . Yet I seem to remember that I suddenly came upon it as I
left the avenue. It stopped my way, and was so high that I felt a little
afraid. And a few steps farther on, I came upon another surprise. There
was a huge hole in it, through which I could see the whole country
outside.'

Serge looked at her with entreaty in his eyes. She gave a little shrug
of her shoulders to reassure him, and went on: 'But I stopped the hole
up; I have told you that we are quite alone, and we are. I stopped it up
at once. I had my knife with me, and I cut down some brambles and rolled
up some big stones. I would defy even a sparrow to force its way
through. If you like, we will go and look at it one of these days, and
then you will be satisfied.'

But he shook his head. Then they went away together, still holding each
other by the waist; but they had grown anxious once more. Serge gazed
down askance at Albine's face, and she felt perturbed beneath his
glance. They would have liked to go down again at once, and thus escape
the uneasiness of a longer walk. But, in spite of themselves, as though
impelled by some stronger power, they skirted a rocky cliff and reached
a table-land, where once more they found the intoxication of the full
sunlight. They no longer inhaled the soft languid perfumes of aromatic
plants, the musky scent of thyme, and the incense of lavender. Now they
were treading a foul-smelling growth under foot; wormwood with bitter,
penetrating smell; rue that reeked like putrid flesh; and hot valerian,
clammy with aphrodisiacal exudations. Mandragoras, hemlocks, hellebores,
dwales, poured forth their odours, and made their heads swim till they
reeled and tottered one against the other.

'Shall I hold you up?' Serge asked Albine, as he felt her leaning
heavily upon him.

He was already pressing her in his arms, but she struggled out of his
grasp, and drew a long breath.

'No; you stifle me,' she said. 'Leave me alone. I don't know what is the
matter with me. The ground seems to give way under my feet. It is there
I feel the pain.'

She took hold of his hand and laid it upon her breast. Then Serge turned
quite pale. He was even more overcome than she. And both had tears in
their eyes as they saw each other thus ill and troubled, unable to think
of a remedy for the evil which had fallen upon them. Were they going to
die here of that mysterious, suffocating faintness?

'Come and sit down in the shade,' said Serge. 'It is these plants which
are poisoning us with their noxious odours.'

He led her gently along by her finger-tips, for she shivered and
trembled when he but touched her wrist. It was beneath a fine cedar,
whose level roof-like branches spread nearly a dozen yards around, that
she seated herself. Behind grew various quaint conifers; cypresses, with
soft flat foliage that looked like heavy lace; spruce firs, erect and
solemn, like ancient druidical pillars, still black with the blood of
sacrificed victims; yews, whose dark robes were fringed with silver;
evergreen trees of all kinds, with thick-set foliage, dark leathery
verdure, splashed here and there with yellow and red. There was a
weird-looking araucaria that stood out strangely with large regular arms
resembling reptiles grafted one on the other, and bristling with
imbricated leaves that suggested the scales of an excited serpent. In
this heavy shade, the warm air lulled one to voluptuous drowsiness. The
atmosphere slept, breathless; and a perfume of Eastern love, the perfume
that came from the painted lips of the Shunamite, was exhaled by the
odorous trees.

'Are you not going to sit down?' said Albine.

And she slipped a little aside to make room for him; but Serge stepped
back and remained standing. Then, as she renewed her request, he dropped
upon his knees, a little distance away, and said, softly: 'No, I am more
feverish even than you are; I should make you hot. If I wasn't afraid of
hurting you, I would take you in my arms, and clasp you so tightly that
we should no longer feel any pain.'

He dragged himself nearer to her on his knees.

'Oh! to have you in my arms! In the night I awake from dreams in which I
see you near me; but, alas! you are ever far away. There seems to be
some wall built up between us which I can never beat down. And yet I am
now quite strong again; I could catch you up in my arms and swing you
over my shoulder, and carry you off as though you belonged to me.'

He had let himself sink upon his elbows, in an attitude of deep
adoration. And he breathed a kiss upon the hem of Albine's skirt. But at
this the girl sprang up, as though it was she herself that had received
the kiss. She hid her brow with her hands, perturbed, quivering, and
stammering forth: 'Don't! don't! I beg of you. Let us go on.'

She did not hurry away, but let Serge follow her as she walked slowly
on, stumbling against the roots of the plants, and with her hands still
clasped round her head, as though to check the excitement that thrilled
her. When they came out of the little wood, they took a few steps over
ledges of rocks, on which a whole nation of ardent fleshy plants was
squatting. It was like a crawling, writhing assemblage of hideous
nameless monsters such as people a nightmare; monsters akin to spiders,
caterpillars, and wood-lice, grown to gigantic proportions, some with
bare glaucous skins, others tufted with filthy matted hairs, whilst many
had sickly limbs--dwarf legs, and shrivelled, palsied arms--sprawling
around them. And some displayed horrid dropsical bellies; some had
spines bossy with hideous humps, and others looked like dislocated
skeletons. Mamillaria threw up living pustules, a crawling swarm of
greenish tortoises, bristling hideously with long hairs that were
stiffer than iron. The echinocacti, which showed more flesh, suggested
nests of young writhing, knotted vipers. The echinopses were mere
excrescent red-haired growths that made one think of huge insects rolled
into balls. The prickly-pears spread out fleshy leaves spotted with
ruddy spikes that resembled swarms of microscopic bees. The gasterias
sprawled about like big shepherd-spiders turned over on their backs,
with long-speckled and striated legs. The cacti of the cereus family
showed a horrid vegetation, huge polyps, the diseases of an overheated
soil, the maladies of poisoned sap. But the aloes, languidly unfolding
their hearts, were particularly numerous and conspicuous. Among them one
found every possible tint of green, pale green and vivid, yellowish
green and greyish, browny green, dashed with a ruddy tone, and deep
green, fringed with pale gold. And the shapes of their leaves were as
varied as their tints. Some were broad and heart-shaped, others were
long and narrow like sword-blades; some bristled with spikey thorns,
while yet others looked as though they had been cunningly hemmed at the
edges. There were giant ones, in lonely majesty, with flower stalks that
towered up aloft like poles wreathed with rosy coral; and there were
tiny ones clustering thickly together on one and the same stem, and
throwing forth on all sides leaves that gleamed and quivered like
adders' tongues.

'Let us go back to the shade,' begged Serge. 'You can sit down there as
you did just now, and I will lie at your feet and talk to you.'

Where they stood the sun rays fell like torrential rain. It was as if
the triumphant orb seized upon the shadowless ground, and strained it to
his blazing breast. Albine grew faint, staggered, and turned to Serge
for support.

But the moment they felt each other's touch, they fell together without
even a word. It was as though the very rock beneath them had opened, as
though they were ever going down and down. Their hands sought each other
caressingly, embracingly, but such keen anguish did they experience that
they suddenly tore themselves apart, and fled, each in a different
direction. Serge did not cease running till he had reached the pavilion,
and had thrown himself upon his bed, his brain on fire, and despair in
his heart. Albine did not return till nightfall, after hours of weeping
in a corner of the garden. It was the first time that they had not
returned home together, tired after their long wanderings. For three
days they kept apart, feeling terribly unhappy.

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