Abbe Mouret's Transgression: Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Albine was seated on a patch of grass a few paces away from the wall.
She sprang up as she caught sight of Serge.

'Ah! you have come!' she cried, trembling from head to foot.

'Yes,' he answered calmly, 'I have come.'

She flung herself upon his neck, but she did not kiss him. To her bare
arms the beads of his neckband seemed very cold. She scrutinised him,
already feeling uneasy, and resuming:

'What is the matter with you? Why don't you kiss my cheeks as you used
to do? Oh! if you are ill, I will cure you once again. Now that you are
here, all our old happiness will return. There will be no more
wretchedness. . . . See! I am smiling. You must smile, too, Serge.'

But his face remained grave.

'I have been troubled, too,' she went on. 'I am still quite pale, am I
not? For a whole week I have been living on that patch of grass, where
you found me. I wanted one thing only, to see you coming back through
the breach in the wall. At every sound I sprang up and rushed to meet
you. But, alas! it was not you I heard. It was only the leaves rustling
in the wind. But I was sure that you would come. I should have waited
for you for years.'

Then she asked him:

'Do you still love me?'

'Yes,' he answered, 'I love you still.'

They stood looking at each other, feeling rather ill at ease. And deep
silence fell between them. Serge, who evinced perfect calmness, did not
attempt to break it. Albine twice opened her mouth to speak, but closed
it immediately, surprised at the words that rose to her lips. She could
summon up nothing but expressions tinged with bitterness. She felt tears
welling into her eyes. What could be the matter with her that she did
not feel happy now that her love had come back?

'Listen to me,' she said at last. 'We must not stay here. It is that
hole that freezes us! Let us go back to our old home. Give me your
hand.'

They plunged into the depths of the Paradou. Autumn was fast
approaching, and the trees seemed anxious as they stood there with their
yellowing crests from which the leaves were falling one by one. The
paths were already littered with dead foliage soaked with moisture,
which gave out a sound as of sighing beneath one's tread. And away
beyond the lawns misty vapour ascended, throwing a mourning veil over
the blue distance. And the whole garden was wrapped in silence, broken
only by some sorrowful moans that sounded quiveringly.

Serge began to shiver beneath the avenue of tall trees, along which they
were walking.

'How cold it is here!' said he in an undertone.

'You are cold indeed,' murmured Albine, sadly. 'My hand is no longer
able to warm you. Shall I wrap you round with part of my dress? Come,
all our love will now be born afresh.'

She led him to the parterre, the flower-garden. The great thicket-like
rosary was still fragrant with perfume, but there was a tinge of
bitterness in the scent of the surviving blossoms, and their foliage,
which had expanded in wild profusion, lay strewn upon the ground. Serge
displayed such unwillingness to enter the tangled jungle, that they
lingered on its borders, trying to detect in the distance the paths
along which they had passed in the spring-time. Albine recollected every
little nook. She pointed to the grotto where the marble woman lay
sleeping; to the hanging screens of honeysuckle and clematis; the fields
of violets; the fountain that spurted out crimson carnations; the steps
down which flowed golden gilliflowers; the ruined colonnade, in the
midst of which the lilies were rearing a snowy pavilion. It was there
that they had been born again beneath the sunlight. And she
recapitulated every detail of that first day together, how they had
walked, and how fragrant had been the air beneath the cool shade. Serge
seemed to be listening, but he suddenly asked a question which showed
that he had not understood her. The slight shiver which made his face
turn pale never left him.

Then she led him towards the orchard, but they could not reach it. The
stream was too much swollen. Serge no longer thought of taking Albine
upon his back and lightly bounding across with her to the other side.
Yet there the apple-trees and the pear-trees were still laden with
fruit, and the vines, now with scantier foliage, bent beneath the weight
of their gleaming clusters, each grape freckled by the sun's caress. Ah!
how they had gambolled beneath the appetising shade of those ancient
trees! What merry children had they then been! Albine smiled as she
thought of how she had clambered up into the cherry-tree that had broken
down beneath her. He, Serge, must at least remember what a quantity of
plums they had eaten. He only answered by a nod. He already seemed quite
weary. The orchard, with its green depths and chaos of mossy trunks,
disquieted him and suggested to his mind some dark, dank spot, teeming
with snakes and nettles.

Then she led him to the meadow-lands, where he had to take a few steps
amongst the grass. It reached to his shoulders now, and seemed to him
like a swarm of clinging arms that tried to bind his limbs and pull him
down and drown him beneath an endless sea of greenery. He begged Albine
to go no further. She was walking on in front, and at first she did not
stop; but when she saw how distressed he appeared, she halted and came
back and stood beside him. She also was growing gradually more
low-spirited, and at last she shuddered like himself. Still she went on
talking. With a sweeping gesture she pointed out to him the streams, the
rows of willows, the grassy expanse stretching far away towards the
horizon. All that had formerly been theirs. For whole days they had
lived there. Over yonder, between those three willows by the water's
edge, they had played at being lovers. And they would then have been
delighted if the grass had been taller than themselves so that they
might have lost themselves in its depths, and have been the more
secluded, like larks nesting at the bottom of a field of corn. Why,
then, did he tremble so to-day, when the tip of his foot just sank into
the grass?

Then she led him to the forest. But the huge trees seemed to inspire
Serge with still greater dread. He did not know them again, so sternly
solemn seemed their bare black trunks. Here, more than anywhere else,
amidst those austere columns, through which the light now freely
streamed, the past seemed quite dead. The first rains had washed the
traces of their footsteps from the sandy paths, the winds had swept
every other lingering memorial into the underbrush. But Albine, with
grief at her throat, shot out a protesting glance. She could still
plainly see their lightest footprints on the sandy gravel, and, as they
passed each bush, the warmth with which they had once brushed against it
surged to her cheeks. With eyes full of soft entreaty, she still strove
to awaken Serge's memory. It was along that path that they had walked in
silence, full of emotion, but as yet not daring to confess that they
loved one another. It was in that clearing that they had lingered one
evening till very late watching the stars, which had rained upon them
like golden drops of warmth. Farther, beneath that oak they had
exchanged their first kiss. Its fragrance still clung to the tree, and
the very moss still remembered it. It was false to say that the forest
had become voiceless and bare.

Serge, however, turned away his head, that he might escape the gaze of
Albine's eyes, which oppressed him.

Then she led him to the great rocks. There, perhaps, he would no longer
shudder with that appearance of debility which so distressed her. At
that hour the rocks were still warm with the red glow of the setting
sun. They still wore an aspect of tragic passion, with their hot ledges
of stone whereon the fleshy plants writhed monstrously. Without speaking
a word, without even turning her head, Albine led Serge up the rough
ascent, wishing to take him ever higher and higher, far up beyond the
springs, till they should emerge into the full light on the summit. They
would there see the cedar, beneath whose shade they had first felt the
thrill of desire, and there amidst the glowing stones they would
assuredly find passion once more. But Serge soon began to stumble
pitiably. He could walk no further. He fell a first time on his knees.
Albine, by a mighty effort, raised him and for a moment carried him
along, but afterwards he fell again, and remained, quite overcome, on
the ground. In front of him, beneath him, spread the vast Paradou.

'You have lied!' cried Albine. 'You love me no longer!'

She burst into tears as she stood there by his side, feeling that she
could not carry him any higher. There was no sign of anger in her now.
She was simply weeping over their dying love. Serge lay dazed and
stupefied.

'The garden is all dead. I feel so very cold,' he murmured. But she took
his head between her hands, and showed him the Paradou.

'Look at it! Ah! it is your eyes that are dead; your ears and your limbs
and your whole body. You have passed by all the scenes of our happiness
without seeing them or hearing them or feeling their presence. You have
done nothing but slip and stumble, and now you have fallen down here in
sheer weariness and boredom. . . . You love me no more.'

He protested, but in a gentle, quiet fashion. Then, for the first time,
she spoke out passionately.

'Be quiet! As if the garden could ever die! It will sleep for the
winter, but it will wake up again in May, and will restore to us all the
love we have entrusted to its keeping. Our kisses will blossom again
amongst the flower-beds, and our vows will bud again with the trees and
plants. If you could only see it and understand it, you would know that
it throbs with even deeper passion, and loves even more absorbingly at
this autumn-time, when it falls asleep in its fruitfulness. . . . But
you love me no more, and so you can no longer understand.'

He raised his eyes to her as if begging her not to be angry. His face
was pinched and pale with an expression of childish fear. The sound of
her voice made him tremble. He ended by persuading her to rest a little
while by his side. They could talk quietly and discuss matters. Then,
with the Paradou spreading out in front of them, they began to speak of
their love, but without even touching one another's fingers.

'I love you; indeed I love you,' said Serge, in his calm, quiet voice.
'If I did not love you, I should not be here: I should not have come. I
am very weary, it is true. I don't know why. I thought I should find
that pleasant warmth again, of which the mere memory was so delightful.
But I am cold, the garden seems quite black. I cannot see anything of
what I left here. But it is not my fault. I am trying hard to be as you
would wish me and to please you.'

'You love me no longer!' Albine repeated once more.

'Yes, I do love you. I suffered grievously the other day after I had
driven you away. . . . Oh! I loved you with such passion that, had you
come back and thrown yourself in my arms, I should almost have crushed
you to death. . . . And for hours your image remained present before me.
When I shut my eyes, you gleamed out with all the brightness of the sun
and threw a flame around me. . . . Then I trampled down every obstacle,
and came here.'

He remained silent for a moment, as if in thought. Then he spoke again:

'And now my arms feel as though they were broken. If I tried to clasp
you, I could not hold you; I should let you fall. . . . Wait till this
shudder has passed away. Give me your hands, and let me kiss them again.
Be gentle and do not look at me with such angry eyes. Help me to find my
heart again.'

He spoke with such genuine sadness, such evident longing to begin the
past anew, that Albine was touched. For a moment all her wonted
gentleness returned to her, and she questioned him anxiously:

'What is the matter with you? What makes you so ill?'

'I do not know. It is as though all my blood had left my veins. Just
now, as I was coming here, I felt as if some one had flung a robe of
ice around my shoulders, which turned me into stone from head to
foot. . . . I have felt it before, but where I don't remember.'

She interrupted him with a kindly laugh.

'You are a child. You have caught cold, that's all. At any rate, it is
not I that you are afraid of, is it? We won't stop in the garden during
the winter, like a couple of wild things. We will go wherever you like,
to some big town. We can love each other there, amongst all the people,
as quietly as amongst the trees. You will see that I can be something
else than a wilding, for ever bird's-nesting and tramping about for
hours. When I was a little girl, I used to wear embroidered skirts and
fine stockings and laces and all kinds of finery. I dare say you never
heard of that.'

He was not listening to her. He suddenly gave vent to a little cry, and
said: 'Ah! now I recollect!'

She asked him what he meant, but he would not answer her. He had just
remembered the feeling he had long ago experienced in the chapel of the
seminary. That was the icy robe enwrapping his shoulders and turning him
to stone. And then his life as a priest took complete possession of his
thoughts. The vague recollections which had haunted him as he walked
from Les Artaud to the Paradou became more and more distinct and assumed
complete mastery over him. While Albine talked on of the happy life that
they would lead together, he heard the tinkling of the sanctuary bell
that signalled the elevation of the Host, and he saw the monstrance
trace gleaming crosses over the heads of kneeling multitudes.

'And for your sake,' Albine was saying, 'I will put on my broidered
skirts again. . . . I want you to be bright and gay. We will try to find
something to make you lively. Perhaps you will love me better when you
see me looking beautiful and prettily dressed, like a fine lady. I will
wear my comb properly and won't let my hair fall wildly about my neck
any more. And I won't roll my sleeves up over my elbows; I will fasten
my dress so as to hide my shoulders. I still know how to bow and how to
walk along quite properly. Yes, I will make you a nice little wife, as I
walk through the streets leaning on your arm.'

'Did you ever go to church when you were a little girl?' he asked her in
an undertone, as if, in spite of himself, he were continuing aloud the
reverie which prevented him from hearing her. 'I could never pass a
church without entering it. As soon as the door closed silently behind
me, I felt as though I were in Paradise itself, with the angels
whispering stories of love in my ears and the saints caressing me with
their breath. Ah! I would have liked to live there for ever, in that
absorbing beatitude.'

She looked at him with steady eyes, a passing blaze kindling in her
loving glance. Nevertheless, submissive still, she answered:

'I will do as you may fancy. I learned music once. I was quite a clever
young lady and was taught all the accomplishments. I will go back to
school and start music again. If there is any tune you would like to
hear me play, you will only have to tell me, and I will practise it for
months and months, so as to play it to you some evening in our own home
when we are by ourselves in some snug little room, with the curtains
closely drawn. And you will pay me with just one kiss, won't you? A kiss
right on the lips, which will awaken all your love again!'

'Yes, yes,' he murmured, answering his own thoughts only; 'my great
pleasure at first was to light the candles, prepare the cruets, and
carry the missal. Then, afterwards, I was filled with bliss at the
approach of God, and felt as though I could die of sheer love. Those are
my only recollections. I know of nothing else. When I raise my hand, it
is to give a benediction. When my lips protrude it is to kiss the altar.
If I look for my heart, I can no longer find it. I have offered it to
God, and He has taken it.'

Albine grew very pale and her eyes gleamed like fire. In a quivering
voice she resumed:

'I should not like my little girl to leave me. You can send the boy to
college, if you wish, but the little girl must always keep with me. I
myself will teach her to read. Oh! I shall remember everything, and if
indeed there be anything that I find I have forgotten, I will have
masters to teach me. . . . Yes, we will keep our dear little ones always
about our knees. You will be happy so, won't you? Speak to me; tell me
that you will then feel warm again, and will smile, and feel no regrets
for anything you have left behind.'

But Serge continued:

'I have often thought of the stone-saints that have been censed in their
niches for centuries past. They must have become quite saturated with
incense; and I am like one of them. I have the fragrance of incense in
the inmost parts of my being. It is that embalmment that gives me
serenity, deathlike tranquillity of body, and the peace which I enjoy in
no longer living. . . . Ah! may nothing ever disturb my quiescence! May
I ever remain cold and rigid, with a ceaseless smile on my granite lips,
incapable of descending among men! That is my one, my only desire!'

At this Albine sprang to her feet, exasperated, threatening. She shook
Serge and cried:

'What are you saying? What is it you are dreaming aloud? Am I not your
wife? Haven't you come here to be my husband?'

He recoiled, trembling yet more violently.

'No! Leave me! I am afraid!' he faltered.

'But our life together, our happiness, the children we shall have?'

'No, no; I am afraid.' And he broke out into a supreme cry: 'I cannot! I
cannot!'

For a moment Albine remained silent, gazing at the unhappy man who lay
shivering at her feet. Her face flared. She opened her arms as if to
seize him and strain him to her breast with wild angry passion. But
another idea came to her, and she merely took him by the hand and raised
him to his feet.

'Come!' said she.

She led him away to that giant tree, to the very spot where their love
had reigned supreme. There was the same bliss-inspiring shade, there was
the same trunk as of yore, the same branches spreading far around, like
sheltering and protecting arms. The tree still towered aloft, kindly,
robust, powerful, and fertile. As on the day of their nuptials,
languorous warmth, the glimmer of a summer's night fading on the bare
shoulder of some fair girl, a sob of love dying away into passionate
silence, lingered about the clearing as it lay there bathed in dim green
light. And, in the distance, the Paradou, in spite of the first chills
of autumn, sighed once more with passion, again becoming love's
accomplice. From the parterre, from the orchard, from the meadow-lands,
from the forest, from the great rocks, from the spreading heavens, came
back a ripple of voluptuous joy. Never had the garden, even on the
warmest evenings of spring-time, shown such deep tenderness as now, on
this fair autumn evening, when the plants and trees seemed to be bidding
one another goodnight ere they sank to sleep. And the scent of ripened
germs wafted the intoxication of desire athwart the scanty leaves.

'Do you hear? Do you hear?' faltered Albine in Serge's ear, when she had
let him slip upon the grass at the foot of the tree.

Serge was weeping.

'You see that the Paradou is not dead,' she added. 'It is crying out to
us to love each other. It still desires our union. Oh, do remember!
Clasp me to your heart!'

Serge still wept.

Albine said nothing more. She flung her arms around him; she pressed her
warm lips to his corpse-like face; but tears were still his only answer.

Then, after a long silence, Albine spoke. She stood erect, full of
contempt and determination.

'Away with you! Go!' she said, in a low voice.

Serge rose with difficulty. He picked up his breviary, which had fallen
upon the grass. And he walked away.

'Away with you! Go!' repeated Albine, in louder tones, as she followed
and drove him before her.

Thus she urged him on from bush to bush till she had driven him back to
the breach in the wall, in the midst of the stern-looking trees. And
there, as she saw Serge hesitate, with lowered head she cried out
violently:

'Away with you Go!'

And slowly she herself went back into the Paradou, without even turning
her head. Night was fast falling, and the garden was but a huge bier of
shadows.

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