Abbe Mouret's Transgression: Chapter 14

Chapter 14

The next morning Serge barricaded himself in his room. The perfume from
the garden irritated him. He drew the calico curtains closely across the
window to shut out the sight of the park. Perhaps he thought he might
recover all his old serenity and calm if he shut himself off from that
greenery, whose shade sent such passionate thrills quivering through
him.

During the long hours they spent together, Albine and he never now spoke
of the rocks or the streams, the trees or the sky. The Paradou might no
longer have been in existence. They strove to forget it. And yet they
were all the time conscious of its presence on the other side of those
slight curtains. Scented breezes forced their way in through the
interstices of the window frame, the many voices of nature made the
panes resound. All the life of the park laughed, chattered, and
whispered in ambush beneath their window. As it reached them their
cheeks would pale and they would raise their voices, seeking some
occupation which might prevent them from hearing it.

'Have you noticed,' said Serge one morning during these uneasy
intervals, 'there is a painting of a woman over the door there? She is
like you.'

He laughed noisily as he finished speaking. They both turned to the
paintings and dragged the table once more alongside the wall, with a
nervous desire to occupy themselves.

'Oh! no,' murmured Albine. 'She is much fatter than I am. But one can't
see her very well; her position is so queer.'

They relapsed into silence. From the decayed, faded painting a scene,
which they had never before noticed, now showed forth. It was as if the
picture had taken shape and substance again beneath the influence of the
summer heat. You could sea a nymph with arms thrown back and pliant
figure on a bed of flowers which had been strewn for her by young
cupids, who, sickle in hand, ever added fresh blossoms to her rosy
couch. And nearer, you could also see a cloven-hoofed faun who had
surprised her thus. But Albine repeated, 'No, she is not like me, she is
very plain.'

Serge said nothing. He looked at the girl and then at Albine, as though
he were comparing them one with the other. Albine pulled up one of her
sleeves, as if to show that her arm was whiter than that of the pictured
girl. Then they subsided into silence again, and gazed at the painting;
and for a moment Albine's large blue eyes turned to Serge's grey ones,
which were glowing.

'You have got all the room painted again, then?' she cried, as she
sprang from the table. 'These people look as though they were all coming
to life again.'

They began to laugh, but there was a nervous ring about their merriment
as they glanced at the nude and frisking cupids which started to life
again on all the panels. They no longer took those survivals of
voluptuous eighteenth century art to represent mere children at play.
They were disturbed by the sight of them, and as Albine felt Serge's hot
breath on her neck she started and left his side to seat herself on the
sofa. 'They frighten me,' she murmured. 'The men are like robbers, and
the women, with their dying eyes, look like people who are being
murdered.'

Serge sat down in a chair, a little distance away, and began to talk of
other matters. But they remained uneasy. They seemed to think that all
those painted figures were gazing at them. It was as if the trooping
cupids were springing out of the panelling, casting the flowers they
held around them, and threatening to bind them together with the blue
ribbons which already enchained two lovers in one corner of the ceiling.
And the whole story of the nymph and her faun lover, from his first peep
at her to his triumph among the flowers, seemed to burst into warm life.
Were all those lovers, all those impudent shameless cupids about to step
down from their panels and crowd around them? They already seemed to
hear their panting sighs, and to feel their breath filling the spacious
room with the perfume of voluptuousness.

'It's quite suffocating, isn't it?' sighed Albine. 'In spite of every
airing I have given it, the room has always seemed close to me!

'The other night,' said Serge, 'I was awakened by such a penetrating
perfume, that I called out to you, thinking you had come into the room.
It was just like the soft warmth of your hair when you have decked it
with heliotropes. . . . In the earlier times it seemed to be wafted to
me from a distance, it was like the lingering memory of a perfume; but
now I can't sleep for it, and it is so strong and penetrating that it
quite stupefies me. The alcove grows so hot, too, at night that I shall
be obliged to lie on the couch.'

Albine laid her fingers on her lips, and whispered, 'It is the dead
girl--she who once lived here.'

They sniffed the odorous air with forced gaiety, but in reality feeling
very troubled. Certainly never before had the room exhaled such a
disquieting aroma. The very walls seemed to be still echoing the faint
rustling of perfumed skirts; and the floor had retained the fragrance of
satin slippers dropped by the bedside, and near the head of the bed
itself Serge thought he could trace the imprint of a little hand, which
had left behind it a clinging scent of violets. Over all the furniture
the phantom presence of the dead girl still lingered fragrantly.

'See, this is the armchair where she used to sit,' cried Albine; 'there
is the scent of her shoulders at the back of it yet.'

She sat down in it herself, and bade Serge drop upon his knees and kiss
her hand.

'You remember the day when I first let you in and said, "Good morrow, my
dear lord!" But that wasn't all, was it? He kissed her hands when the
door was closed. There they are, my hands. They are yours.'

Then they tried to resume their old frolics in order that they might
forget the Paradou, whose joyous murmur they heard ever rising outside,
and that they might no longer think of the pictures nor yield to the
languor-breathing influence of the room. Albine put on an affected
manner, leant back in her chair, and finally laughed at the foolish
figure which Serge made at her feet.

'You stupid!' she said, 'take me round the waist, and say pretty things
to me, since you are supposed to be in love with me. Don't you know how
to make love then?'

But as soon as she felt him clasp her with eager impetuosity, she began
to struggle, and freed herself from his embrace.

'No, no; leave me alone. I can't bear it. I feel as though I were
choking in this room.'

From that day forward they felt the same kind of fear for the room as
they already felt for the garden. Their one remaining harbour of refuge
was now a place to be shunned and dreaded, a spot where they could no
longer find themselves together without watching each other furtively.
Albine now scarcely ventured to enter it, but remained near the
threshold, with the door wide open behind her so as to afford her an
immediate retreat. Serge lived there in solitude, a prey to sickening
restlessness, half-stifling, lying on the couch and vainly trying to
close his ears to the sighs of the soughing park and his nostrils to the
haunting fragrance of the old furniture. At night he dreamt wild
passionate dreams, which left him in the morning nervous and disquieted.
He believed that he was falling ill again, that he would never recover
plenitude of health. For days and days he remained there in silence,
with dark rings round his sleepy eyes, only starting into wakefulness
when Albine came to visit him. They would remain face to face, gazing at
one another sadly, and uttering but a few soft words, which seemed to
choke them. Albine's eyes were even darker than Serge's, and were filled
with an imploring gaze.

Then, after a week had gone by, Albine's visit never lasted more than a
few minutes. She seemed to shun him. When she came to the room, she
appeared thoughtful, remained standing, and hurried off as soon as
possible. When he questioned her about this change in her demeanour
towards him, and reproached her for no longer being friendly, she turned
her head away and avoided replying. He never could get her to tell him
how she spent the mornings that she passed alone. She would only shake
her head, and talk about being very idle. If he pressed her more
closely, she bounded out of the room, just wishing him a hasty
good-night as she disappeared through the doorway. He often noticed,
however, that she had been crying. He observed, too, in her expression
the phases of a hope that was never fulfilled, the perpetual struggling
of a desire eager to be satisfied. Sometimes she seemed quite
overwhelmed with melancholy, dragging herself about with an air of utter
discouragement, like one who no longer had any pleasure in living. At
other times she laughed lightly, her face shone with an expression of
triumphant hope, of which, however, she would not yet speak, and her
feet could not remain still, so eager was she to dart away to what
seemed to her some last certainty. But on the following day, she would
sink again into desperation, to soar afresh on the morrow on the pinions
of renewed hope. One thing which she could not conceal from Serge was
that she suffered from extreme lassitude. Even during the few moments
they spent together she could not prevent her head from nodding, or keep
herself from dozing off.

Serge, recognising that she was unwilling to reply, had ceased to
question her; and, when she now entered his room, he contented himself
with casting an anxious glance at her, fearful lest some evening she
should no longer have strength enough to come to him. Where could she
thus reduce herself to such exhaustion? What perpetual struggle was it
that brought about those alternations of joy and despair? One morning he
started at the sound of a light footfall beneath his window. It could
not be a roe venturing abroad in that manner. Moreover he could
recognise that light footfall. Albine was wandering about the Paradou
without him. It was from the Paradou that she returned to him with all
those hopes and fears and inward wrestlings, all that lassitude which
was killing her. And he could well guess what she was seeking out there,
alone in the woody depths, with all the silent obstinacy of a woman who
has vowed to effect her purpose. After that he used to listen for her
steps. He dared not draw aside the curtain and watch her as she hurried
along through the trees; but he experienced strange, almost painful
emotion, in listening to ascertain what direction she took, whether she
turned to right or to left, whether she went straight on through the
flower-beds, and how far her ramble extended. Amidst all the noisy life
of the Paradou, amidst the soughing chorus of the trees, the rustling of
the streams, and the ceaseless songs of the birds, he could distinguish
the gentle pit-pat of her shoes so plainly that he could have told
whether she was stepping over the gravel near the rivers, the crumbling
mould of the forest, or the bare ledges of the rocks. In time he even
learned to tell, from the sound of her nervous footfall, whether she
came back hopeful or depressed. As soon as he heard her step on the
staircase, he hurried from the window, and he never let her know that he
had thus followed her from afar in her wanderings. But she must have
guessed it, for with a glance she always afterwards told him where she
had been.

'Stay indoors, and don't go out,' he begged her, with clasped hands, one
morning when he saw her still unrecovered from the fatigue of the
previous day. 'You drive me to despair.'

But she hastened away in irritation. The garden, now that it rang with
Albine's footfalls, seemed to have a more depressing influence than ever
upon Serge. The pit-pat of her feet was yet another voice that called
him; an imperious voice that echoed ever more and more loudly within
him. He closed his ears and tried to shut out the sound, but the distant
footsteps still echoed to him in the throbbings of his heart. And when
she came back, in the evening, it was the whole park that came back with
her, with the memories of their walks together, and of the slow dawn of
their love, in the midst of conniving nature. She seemed to have grown
taller and graver, mellowed, matured by her solitary rambles. There was
nothing left in her of the frolicsome child, and his teeth would
suddenly set at times when he looked at her and beheld her so desirable.

One day, about noon, Serge heard Albine returning in hot haste. He had
restrained himself from listening for her steps when she went away.
Usually, she did not return till late, and he was amazed at her
impetuosity as she sped along, forcing her way through the branches that
barred her path. As she passed beneath his window, he heard her laugh;
and as she mounted the stairway, she panted so heavily that he almost
thought he could feel her hot breath streaming against his face. She
threw the door wide open, and cried out: 'I have found it!'

Then she sat down and repeated softly, breathlessly: 'I have found it! I
have found it!'

Serge, distracted, laid his fingers on her lips, and stammered: 'Don't
tell me anything, I beg you. I want to know nothing of it. It will kill
me, if you speak.'

Then she sank into silence with gleaming eyes and lips tightly pressed
lest the words she kept back should spring out in spite of her. And she
stayed in the room till evening, trying to meet Serge's glance, and
imparting to him, each time that their eyes met, something of that which
she had discovered. Her whole face beamed with radiance, she exhaled a
delicious odour, she was full of life; and Serge felt that she permeated
him through all his senses. Despairingly did he struggle against this
gradual invasion of his being.

On the morrow she returned to his room as soon as she was up.

'Aren't you going out?' he asked, conscious that he would be vanquished
should she remain there.

'No,' she said; she wasn't going out any more. As by degrees she
recovered from her fatigue he felt her becoming stronger, more
triumphant. She would soon be able to take him by the hand and drag him
to that spot, whose charm her silence proclaimed so loudly. That day,
however, she did not speak; she contented herself with keeping him
seated on a cushion at her feet. It was not till the next morning that
she ventured to say: 'Why do you shut yourself up here? It is so
pleasant under the trees.'

He rose from her feet, and stretched out his arms entreatingly. But she
laughed at him.

'Well, well, then, we won't go out, since you would rather
not. . . . But this room has such a strange scent, and we should be
much more comfortable in the garden. It is very wrong of you to have
taken such a dislike to it.'

He had again settled himself at her feet in silence, his eyelids
lowered, his features quivering with passionate emotion.

'We won't go out,' she repeated, 'so don't worry. But do you really
prefer these pictures to the grass and flowers in the park? Do you
remember all we saw together? It is these paintings which make us feel
so unhappy. They are a nuisance, always looking and watching us as they
do.'

As Serge gradually leant more closely against her, she passed her arm
round his neck and laid his head upon her lap, while murmuring in yet a
lower tone: 'There is a little corner there I know, where we might be so
very happy. Nothing would trouble us there; the fresh air would cool
your feverishness.'

Then she stopped, as she felt him quivering. She was afraid lest she
might again revive his old fears. But she gradually conquered him merely
by the caressing gaze of her blue eyes. His eyelids were now raised, and
he rested there quietly, wholly hers, his tremor past.

'Ah! if you only knew!' she softly breathed; and seeing that he
continued to smile, she went on boldly: 'It is all a lie; it is not
forbidden. You are a man now and ought not to be afraid. If we went
there, and any danger threatened me, you would protect me, you would
defend me, would you not? You could carry me off on your back, couldn't
you? I am never the least afraid when I have you with me. Look how
strong your arms have grown. What is there for any one with such strong
arms as yours to be afraid of?'

She caressed him beguilingly as she spoke, stroking his hair and neck
and shoulders with her hand.

'No, it is not forbidden,' she resumed. 'That is only a story for
stupids, and was invented, long ago, by some one who didn't want to be
disturbed in the most charming spot in the whole garden. As soon as you
sat down on that grassy carpet, you would be happy and well again.
Listen, then, come with me.'

He shook his head but without any sign of vexation, as though indeed he
liked thus being teased. Then after a short silence, grieved to see her
pouting, and longing for a renewal of her caresses, he opened his lips
and asked: 'Where is it?'

She did not answer him immediately. Her eyes seemed to be wandering far
away: 'It is over yonder,' she murmured at last. 'I cannot explain to
you clearly. One has to go down the long avenue, and then to turn to the
left, and then again to the left. We must have passed it at least a
score of times. You might look for it for ever without finding it, if I
didn't go with you to show you. I could find my way to it quite
straight, though I could never explain it to you.'

'And who took you there?'

'I don't know. That morning the trees and plants seemed to drive me
there. The long branches pushed me on, the grass bent down before me
invitingly, the paths seemed to open expressly for me to take them. And
I believe the animals themselves helped to lead me there, for I saw a
stag trotting on before me as though he wanted me to follow; while a
company of bullfinches flitted on from tree to tree, and warned me with
their cries whenever I was about to take a wrong direction.'

'And is it very beautiful?'

Again she did not reply. Deep ecstasy filled her eyes; at last, when she
was able to speak again, she said: 'Ah! so beautiful, that I could never
tell you of it. I was so charmed that I was conscious only of some
supreme joy, which I could not name, falling from the leaves and
slumbering amid the grass. And I ran back here to take you along with me
that I might not be without you.'

Then she clasped her arms round his neck again, and entreated him
passionately, her lips almost pressed to his own.

'Oh! you will come!' she stammered; 'you must come; you will make me so
miserable if you don't. You can't want me to be miserable. . . . And
even if you knew that you would die there, even if that shade should be
fatal to both of us, would you hesitate or cast a regretful look behind?
We should remain there, at the foot of the tree, and sleep on quietly
for ever, in one anther's arms. Ah! would it not be bliss indeed?'

'Yes, yes!' he stammered, transported by her passionate entreaties.

'But we shall not die,' she continued, raising her voice, and laughing
with the laugh which proclaims woman's victory; 'we shall live to love
each other. It is a tree of life, a tree whose shadow will make us
stronger, more perfect, more complete. You will see that all will now go
happily. Some blessed joy will assuredly descend on us from heaven! Will
you come?'

His face paled, and his eyelids quivered, as though too powerful a light
were suddenly beating against them.

'Will you come? will you come?' she cried again, yet more passionately,
and already half rising to her feet.

He sprang up and followed her, at first with tottering steps and then
with his arm thrown round her waist, as if he could endure no separation
from her. He went where she went, carried along in the warm fragrance
that streamed from her hair. And as he thus remained slightly in the
rear, she turned upon him a face so radiant with love, such tempting
lips and eyes, which so imperiously bade him follow, that he would have
gone with her anywhere, trusting and unquestioning, like a dog.

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