Abbe Mouret's Transgression: Chapter 15

Chapter 15

They went down and out into the garden without the smile fading from
Serge's face. All that he saw of the greenery around him was such as was
reflected in the clear depths of Albine's eyes. As they approached, the
garden smiled and smiled again, a murmur of content sped from leaf to
leaf and from bough to bough to the furthest depths of the avenues. For
days and days the garden must have been hoping and expecting to see them
thus, clinging to one another, making their peace again with the trees
and searching for their lost love on the grassy banks. A solemn warning
breath sighed through the branches; the afternoon sky was drowsy with
heat; the plants raised their bowing heads to watch them pass.

'Listen,' whispered Albine. 'They drop into silence as we come near
them; but over yonder they are expecting us, they are telling each other
the way they must lead us. . . . I told you we should have no trouble
about the paths, the trees themselves will direct us with their
spreading arms.'

The whole park did, indeed, appear to be impelling them gently onward.
In their rear it seemed as if a barrier of brush-wood had bristled up to
prevent them from retracing their steps; while, in front of them, the
grassy lawns spread out so invitingly, that they glided along the soft
slopes, without thought of choosing their way.

'And the birds are coming with us, too,' said Albine. 'It is the tomtits
this time. Don't you see them? They are skimming over the hedges, and
they stop at each turning to see that we don't lose our way.' Then she
added: 'All the living things of the park are with us. Can't you hear
them? There is a deep rustling close behind us. It is the birds in the
trees, the insects in the grass, the roebucks and the stags in the
coppices, and even the little fishes splashing the quiet water with
their beating fins. Don't turn round, or you will frighten them. Ah! I
am sure we have a rare train behind us.'

They still walked on, unfatigued. Albine spoke only to charm Serge with
the music of her voice, while Serge obeyed the slightest pressure of her
hand. They knew not what they passed, but they were certain that they
were going straight towards their goal. And as they went along, the
garden became gradually graver, more discreet; the soughing of the
branches died away, the streams hushed their plashing waters, the birds,
the beasts, and the insects fell into silence. All around them reigned
solemn stillness.

Then Albine and Serge instinctively raised their heads. In front of them
they beheld a colossal mass of foliage; and, as they hesitated for a
moment, a roe, after gazing at them with its sweet soft eyes, bounded
into the thickets.

'It is there,' said Albine.

She led the way, her face again turned towards Serge, whom she drew with
her, and they disappeared amid the quivering leaves, and all grew quiet
again. They were entering into delicious peace.

In the centre there stood a tree covered with so dense a foliage that
one could not recognise its species. It was of giant girth, with a trunk
that seemed to breathe like a living breast, and far-reaching boughs
that stretched like protecting arms around it. It towered up there
beautiful, strong, virile, and fruitful. It was the king of the garden,
the father of the forest, the pride of the plants, the beloved of the
sun, whose earliest and latest beams smiled daily on its crest. From its
green vault poured all the joys of creation: fragrance of flowers, music
of birds, gleams of golden light, wakeful freshness of dawn, slumbrous
warmth of evening twilight. So strong was the sap that it burst through
the very bark, bathing the tree with the powers of fruitfulness, making
it the symbol of earth's virility. Its presence sufficed to give the
clearing an enchanting charm. The other trees built up around it an
impenetrable wall, which isolated it as in a sanctuary of silence and
twilight. There was but greenery there, not a scrap of sky, not a
glimpse of horizon; nothing but a swelling rotunda, draped with green
silkiness of leaves, adorned below with mossy velvet. And one entered,
as into the liquid crystal of a source, a greenish limpidity, a sheet of
silver reposing beneath reflected reeds. Colours, perfumes, sounds,
quivers, all were vague, indeterminate, transparent, steeped in a
felicity amidst which everything seemed to faint away. Languorous
warmth, the glimmer of a summer's night, as it fades on the bare
shoulder of some fair girl, a scarce perceptible murmur of love sinking
into silence, lingered beneath the motionless branches, unstirred by the
slightest zephyr. It was hymeneal solitude, a chamber where Nature lay
hidden in the embraces of the sun.

Albine and Serge stood there in an ecstasy of joy. As soon as the tree
had received them beneath its shade, they felt eased of all the anxious
disquiet which had so long distressed them. The fears which had made
them avoid each other, the fierce wrestling of spirit which had torn and
wounded them, without consciousness on their part of what they were
really contending against, vanished, and left them in perfect peace.
Absolute confidence, supreme serenity, now pervaded them, they yielded
unhesitatingly to the joy of being together in that lonely nook, so
completely hidden from the outside world. They had surrendered
themselves to the garden, they awaited in all calmness the behests of
that tree of life. It enveloped them in such ecstasy of love that the
whole clearing seemed to disappear from before their eyes, and to leave
them wrapped in an atmosphere of perfume.

'The air is like ripe fruit,' murmured Albine.

And Serge whispered in his turn: 'The grass seems so full of life and
motion, that I could almost think I was treading on your dress.'

It was a kind of religious feeling which made them lower their voices.
No sentiment of curiosity impelled them to raise their heads and scan
the tree. The consciousness of its majesty weighed heavily upon them.
With a glance Albine asked whether she had overrated the enchantment of
the greenery, and Serge answered her with two tears that trickled down
his cheeks. The joy that filled them at being there could not be
expressed in words.

'Come,' she whispered in his ear, in a voice that was softer than a
sigh.

And she glided on in front of him, and seated herself at the very foot
of the tree. Then, with a fond smile, she stretched out her hands to
him; while he, standing before her, grasped them in his own with a
responsive smile. Then she drew him slowly towards her and he sank down
by her side.

'Ah! do you remember,' he said, 'that wall which seemed to have grown up
between us? Now there is nothing to keep us apart--you are not unhappy
now?'

'No, no,' she answered; 'very happy.'

For a moment they relapsed into silence whilst soft emotion stole over
them. Then Serge, caressing Albine, exclaimed: 'Your face is mine; your
eyes, your mouth, your cheeks are mine. Your arms are mine, from your
shoulders to the tips of your nails. You are wholly mine.' And as he
spoke he kissed her lips, her eyes, her cheeks. He kissed her arms, with
quick short kisses, from her fingers to her shoulders. He poured upon
her a rain of kisses hot as a summer shower, deluging her cheeks, her
forehead, her lips, and her neck.

'But if you are mine, I am yours,' said he; 'yours for ever; for I now
well know that you are my queen, my sovereign, whom I must worship on
bended knee. I am here only to obey you, to lie at your feet, to
anticipate your wishes, to shelter you with my arms, to drive away
whatever might trouble your tranquillity. And you are my life's goal.
Since I first awoke in this garden, you have ever been before me; I have
grown up that I might be yours. Ever, as my end, my reward, have I gazed
upon your grace. You passed in the sunshine with the sheen of your
golden hair; you were a promise that I should some day know all the
mysteries and necessities of creation, of this earth, of these trees,
these waters, these skies, whose last secret is yet unrevealed. I belong
to you; I am your slave; I will listen to you and obey you, with my lips
upon your feet.'

He said this, bowed to the ground, adoring Woman. And Albine, full of
pride, allowed herself to be adored. She yielded her hands, her cheeks,
her lips, to Serge's rapturous kisses. She felt herself indeed a queen
as she saw him, who was so strong, bending so humbly before her. She had
conquered him, and held him there at her mercy. With a single word she
could dispose of him. And that which helped her to recognise her
omnipotence was that she heard the whole garden rejoicing at her
triumph, with gradually swelling paeans of approval.

'Ah! if we could fly off together, if we could but die even, in one
another's arms,' faltered Serge, scarce able to articulate. But Albine
had strength enough to raise her finger as though to bid him listen.

It was the garden that had planned and willed it all. For weeks and
weeks it had been favouring and encouraging their passion, and at last,
on that supreme day, it had lured them to that spot, and now it became
the Tempter whose every voice spoke of love. From the flower-beds, amid
the fragrance of the languid blossoms, was wafted a soft sighing, which
told of the weddings of the roses, the love-joys of the violets; and
never before had the heliotropes sent forth so voluptuous a perfume.
Mingled with the soft air which arose from the orchard were all the
exhalations of ripe fruit, the vanilla of apricots, the musk of oranges,
all the luscious aroma of fruitfulness. From the meadows came fuller
notes, the million sighs of the sun-kissed grass, the multitudinous
love-plaints of legions of living things, here and there softened by the
refreshing caresses of the rivulets, on whose banks the very willows
palpitated with desire. And the forest proclaimed the mighty passion of
the oaks. Through the high branches sounded solemn music, organ strains
like the nuptial marches of the ashes and the birches, the hornbeams and
the planes, while from the bushes and the young coppices arose noisy
mirth like that of youthful lovers chasing one another over banks and
into hollows amid much crackling and snapping of branches. From afar,
too, the faint breeze wafted the sounds of the rocks splitting in their
passion beneath the burning heat, while near them the spiky plants loved
in a tragic fashion of their own, unrefreshed by the neighbouring
springs, which themselves glowed with the love of the passionate sun.

'What do they say?' asked Serge, half swooning, as Albine pressed him to
her bosom. The voices of the Paradou were growing yet more distinct. The
animals, in their turn, joined in the universal song of nature. The
grasshoppers grew faint with the passion of their chants; the
butterflies scattered kisses with their beating wings. The amorous
sparrows flew to their mates; the rivers rippled over the loves of the
fishes; whilst in the depths of the forest the nightingales sent forth
pearly, voluptuous notes, and the stags bellowed their love aloud.
Reptiles and insects, every species of invisible life, every atom of
matter, the earth itself joined in the great chorus. It was the chorus
of love and of nature--the chorus of the whole wide world; and in the
very sky the clouds were radiant with rapture, as to those two children
Love revealed the Eternity of Life.

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