Abbe Mouret's Transgression: Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Albine and Serge smiled at one another.

'I love you, Albine,' said Serge.

'Serge, I love you,' Albine answered.

And never before had those syllables 'I love you' had for them so
supreme a meaning. They expressed everything. Joy pervaded those young
lovers, who had attained to the fulness of life. They felt that they
were now on a footing of equality with the forces of the world; and with
their happiness mingled the placid conviction that they had obeyed the
universal law. And Serge seemed to have awakened to life, lion-like, to
rule the whole far expanse under the free heavens. His feet planted
themselves more firmly on the ground, his chest expanded, there was
pride and confidence in his gait and demeanour. He took Albine by the
hands, she was trembling, and he was obliged to support her.

'Don't be afraid,' he said; 'you are she whom I love.'

It was Albine now who had become the submissive one. She drooped her
head upon his shoulder, glancing up at him with anxious scrutiny. Would
he never bear her spite for that hour of adoration in which he had
called himself her slave? But he smiled, and stroked her hair, while she
said to him: 'Let me stay like this, in your arms, for I cannot walk
without you. I will make myself so small and light, that you will
scarcely know I am there.' Then becoming very serious she added, 'You
must always love me; and I will be very obedient and do whatever you
wish. I will yield to you in all things if you but love me.'

Serge felt more powerful and virile on seeing her so humble. 'Why are
you trembling so?' he asked her; 'I can have no cause to reproach you.'

But she did not answer him, she gazed almost sadly upon the tree and the
foliage and the grass around them.

'Foolish child!' he said, laughing; 'are you afraid that I shall be
angry with you for your love? We have loved as we were meant to love.
Let me kiss you.'

But, dropping her eyelids so that she might not see the tree, she said,
in a low whisper, 'Take me away!'

Serge led her thence, pacing slowly and giving one last glance at the
spot which love had hallowed. The shadows in the clearing were growing
darker, and a gentle quiver coursed through the foliage. When they
emerged from the wood and caught sight of the sun, still shining
brightly in the horizon, they felt easier. Everything around Serge now
seemed to bend down before him and pay homage to his love. The garden
was now nothing but an appanage of Albine's beauty, and seemed to have
grown larger and fairer amid the love-kisses of its rulers.

But Albine's joy was still tinged with disquietude. She would suddenly
pause amid her laughter and listen anxiously.

'What is the matter?' asked Serge.

'Nothing,' she replied, casting furtive glances behind her.

They did not know in what out-of-the-way corner of the park they were.
To lose themselves in their capricious wanderings only served to amuse
them as a rule; but that day they experienced anxious embarrassment. By
degrees they quickened their pace, plunging more and more deeply into a
labyrinth of bushes.

'Don't you hear?' asked Albine, nervously, as she suddenly stopped
short, almost breathless.

Serge listened, a prey, in his turn, to the anxiety which the girl could
no longer conceal.

'All the coppice seems full of voices,' she continued. 'It sounds as
though there were people deriding us. Listen! Wasn't that a laugh that
sounded from that tree? And over yonder did not the grass murmur
something as my dress brushed against it?'

'No, no,' he said, anxious to reassure her, 'the garden loves us; and,
if it said anything, it would not be to vex or annoy us. Don't you
remember all the sweet words which sounded through the leaves? You are
nervous and fancy things.'

But she shook her head and faltered: 'I know very well that the garden
is our friend. . . . So it must be some one who has broken into it. I am
certain I hear some one. I am trembling all over. Oh! take me away and
hide me somewhere, I beseech you.'

Then they went on again, scanning every tree and bush, and imagining
that they could see faces peering at them from behind every trunk.
Albine was certain, she said, that there were steps pursuing them in the
distance. 'Let us hide ourselves,' she begged.

She had turned quite scarlet. It was new-born modesty, a sense of shame
which had laid hold of her like a fever, mantling over the snowy
whiteness of her skin, which never previously had known that flush.
Serge was alarmed at seeing her thus crimson, her face full of distress,
her eyes brimming with tears. He tried to clasp her in his arms again
and to soothe her with a caress; but she slipped away from him, and,
with a despairing gesture, made sign that they were not alone. And her
blushes grew deeper as her eyes fell upon her bare arms. She shuddered
when her loose hanging hair stirred against her neck and shoulders. The
slightest touch of a waving bough or a passing insect, the softest
breath of air, now made her tremble as if some invisible hand were
grasping at her.

'Calm yourself,' begged Serge, 'there is no one. You are as crimson as
though you had a fever. Let us rest here for a moment. Do; I beg you.'

She had no fever at all, she said, but she wanted to get back as quickly
as possible, so that no one might laugh at her. And, ever increasing her
pace, she plucked handfuls of leaves and tendrils from the hedges, which
she entwined about her. She fastened a branch of mulberry over her hair,
twisted bindweed round her arms, and tied it to her wrists, and circled
her neck with such long sprays of laurustinus, that her bosom was hidden
as by a veil of leaves.

And that shame of hers proved contagious. Serge, who first had jested,
asking her if she were going to a ball, glanced at himself, and likewise
felt alarmed and ashamed, to a point that he also wound foliage about
his person.

Meantime, they could discover no way out of the labyrinth of bushes, but
all at once, at the end of the path, they found themselves face to face
with an obstacle, a tall, grey, grave mass of stone. It was the wall of
the Paradou.

'Come away! come away!' cried Albine.

And she sought to drag him thence; but they had not taken another twenty
steps before they again came upon the wall. They then skirted it at a
ran, panic-stricken. It stretched along, gloomy and stern, without a
break in its surface. But suddenly, at a point where it fringed a
meadow, it seemed to fall away. A great breach gaped in it, like a huge
window of light opening on to the neighbouring valley. It must have been
the very hole that Albine had one day spoken of, which she said she had
blocked up with brambles and stones. But the brambles now lay scattered
around like severed bits of rope, the stones had been thrown some
distance away, and the breach itself seemed to have been enlarged by
some furious hand.

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