IX
The dying flame of my memory burns up here into a brighter light. I remember the following with a strange, besetting vividness.
As Madeleine rose from the sand some straws and bits of earth clung to her skirt, and I brushed them off. Under the trees that bordered the shore, our horses were browsing at some leaves, and I still can hear the crumpling sound as they chewed them. To get back into the saddle, Madeleine rested a foot in my hand; and again I had that sensation of her extraordinary lightness. I looked up at her in some alarm.
As we rode along, I finally asked concernedly:
“My dear, have you been quite well these days past?”
She seemed surprised at the question:
“I?”
“Why yes, you! You seemed rather tired, I thought!”
She opened her handbag, produced a beauty-box and looked into the tiny mirror that was on its cover. Then she laughed:
“What can you be dreaming of, silly! You quite frightened me! But my skin is as rosy as a milkmaid’s!”
That was true. The exhilaration of the drive had brought the ruddiest glow to her cheeks. She brushed them over with her powder puff, however. I might well have accepted the explanation, but a feeling of uneasiness came over me. Might there not be strange diseases that eat out the vitality of a person without changing appearances of perfect health? Certain fevers bring rosiness and not pallor to the features!
I had not seen Madeleine for nearly a week just previous. She usually told me all she did. Perhaps she had been tiring herself in some way or other:
“What have you been doing, love, since I saw you Tuesday?”
“Since Tuesday?” she repeated with some hesitation.
“Ho!” said I, “What a memory! Yes, since Tuesday, to be sure!”
“Oh, yes!... It would be easier to remember if there were anything in particular,” she replied. “I have done nothing at all, stupid! Oh yes, that’s so! I did go into town once! That was Thursday!”
“And without telling me you were to be there, where I could have seen you?”
She turned toward me and stared, with a certain perplexity, as one looks on discovering in the mind a thought, or a memory, one had never dreamed of finding there. She repeated my exclamation with an interrogative inflection:
“Without letting you know?”
She looked dreamily down over the mane of her horse. Then she resumed.
“That’s true! I didn’t let you know!”
And she blushed in the most evident perplexity and confusion. I was quite amused; and I went on:
“And I suppose you had a date with somebody ... somebody whose company was far more alluring than that of your old friend perhaps!...”
She passed a hand across her forehead, as though to collect her thoughts; once, twice she did this. And I noticed that where her four fingers pressed upon her marble skin, four ruddy spots appeared.
“Did I see someone?” she asked. “Whom did I see?”
She asked the question quite innocently in a sort of dreamy reverie. I raised my voice in mock severity, the way one calls a child to order:
“‘Whom did I see!’ How should I know, dearie, whom you saw? I was asking you?”
She started imperceptibly, and then quite changing tone and manner, she resumed:
“Oh, I made a mistake ... Thursday! I didn’t go into town, Thursday! It was Tuesday, and I took the train ... for Beaulieu!”
“I see ... so your mother is at Beaulieu again. You paid her a visit?”
“Nonsense! Mother is at Aix! This is September, you see!”
“Why Beaulieu, then?”
“Why Beaulieu?”
Again she seemed to have lapsed into a dream. As she answered, her lips quivered and each word came out with an effort that was noticeable.
“Because ... why yes ... I had some errands to do there.... I went to Beaulieu.... In fact ... see for yourself ...!”
She dropped the reins and began looking through the little bag that was hanging from her wrist.
“See ... here is my ticket ...!” she added triumphantly.
I was quite puzzled, less at the fact of her visit to Beaulieu than at her whole manner. And my astonishment was not relieved when I observed that the ticket had been punched but once.
“You got on the train—that is evident! But how do you happen to have the ticket, anyway? How did you get through the gate without giving it up?”
Her eyes turned toward me vacantly, wide open, almost bulging:
“Why, I.... Yes.... How do I know? Of course not! I didn’t give it up. I suppose the gateman failed to ask me for it....”
And her brow knit into a slight wrinkle that seemed to mark a strange and intense mental concentration. A second later she seemed to give up, and she confessed:
“Listen, darling ... I think I had better tell you.... It’s all so absurd.... I’m really quite ashamed. But I think you ought to know. Well ... see here ... I simply don’t know why I went to Beaulieu Tuesday. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, to call me there ... at least, nothing that I can remember right now.... Nor can I remember having done anything in particular when I got there.... I left Tuesday morning and I came back Wednesday night.... And I was all tired out when I reached home.... There you have the whole story....”
I was so astounded at this incredible tale that I pulled my horse up short.
“The whole story! That’s absurd, my dear! You must have left word at home ... given some pretext....”
“Of course ... but what it was I can’t remember!”
“But your housekeeper ... your maid ... your husband ... when you came home, they must have asked you about the villa or something!”
“Yes, my husband asked me if I had had a good trip and I answered that I had!”
“And the train ... the journey itself ... the station ... Beaulieu! Where did you go, when you got out of the train?”
“To ... to the villa, ... of course!”
“Of course nothing! You don’t seem to be so sure!”
“Oh, I’m sure ... sure enough! The trouble is, André ... I don’t know, it all seems so vague and hazy in my mind ... and it’s funny ... the harder I try to remember, the less I seem able to.... Oh, I’m ill, ill, André! Here ... here!”
And one of her pink fingers pointed to the vertical wrinklet between her eyebrows. As I sat there looking at her fixedly, searchingly, she burst suddenly into convulsive sobs. I reined my horse to her side, put my arm about her shoulders, and kissed her tears away.