XVIII
She was still asleep, lost in that terrible slumber which, assuredly was more like death than like life. Her black eyelids, her livid lips, her ashen cheeks, her cold flesh, I scanned vehemently for some faint, deep-seated flush that would bespeak the coursing of a little blood, at least, through a few of her arteries.... In vain! In vain!
An endless minute passed. I had bent forward over the bed to gaze upon her, not daring to stir the coverlets with the merest touch of my fingers. Finally, from her sunken chest the sound of stronger breathing seemed to come; and simultaneously on both her cheeks I could distinguish the pallid but reassuring blush I had waited for, so long, so ardently....
What now took place was like a swift, miraculous resurrection. Her whole countenance regained its color gradually, her pulse beat more strongly, her beautiful breast began to raise the comforters in a regular rhythmic heaving. I lowered my head till my face almost rested on her eyelids, my lips ready to welcome with a kiss the first opening of her eyes; I could feel the vital warmth again returning to her forehead and cheeks. She sighed inaudibly and her lips sketched a smile. I could restrain my caress no longer. It was under a passionate shower of kisses from me that she returned to consciousness....
Oh gods of Heaven and Hell! All this was but a few weeks ago! Yet how many ages have died, how many aeons have sunk into eternity, since that kiss was mine?
She said:
“Oh, I have been asleep!... And you were here, saucy boy!”
She knotted her silken arms about my neck; and I felt her body—how light, how alarmingly light it was!—stiffen a little as she drew herself up languidly under the coverlets....
She also said:
“Dearest, dearest love!... Oh, how tired I am!... It seems as though I could never again lift my head or stir a finger!... Never, never again!... But you love your poor little girl, don’t you?... Look out, Monsieur! Perhaps your doll is broken!...”
She said no more—just then; because my lips had smothered her last words.
As she sat up, I piled the pillows behind her. Her hair of greenish gold poured in a sparkling torrent down over her body. Her white arms still encircled my neck. She laughed—that laugh of mischievous girlish gaiety which I had always so much adored in her. I released myself from her embrace; and resting a knee upon the bed, and throwing an arm around her wonderful shoulders, I plunged my gaze into the bright lucid depths of her eyes.... And I forgot, I forgot, everything, everything!...
She said:
“Why, my hair is all down! I seem to have lost every comb, every pin to my name!” And she laughed aloud.
I listened with all my soul.
She drew up higher on the pillows, with an effort that brought the pallor to her face again. She cast a nervous glance about the room. I was afraid lest she perceive the bare walls, the grated window, the single wicker chair—afraid lest, perceiving them, she take fright at her strange surroundings, and kill the smile of trustfulness and confidence that lingered entrancingly on her lips.... But no! The invisible blinder was securely fastened upon her eyes. She saw nothing unusual in that chamber which was our prison.
She asked simply:
“What time is it? Surely not yet seven o’clock?”
When I answered I too summoned a smile:
“It’s early still, my silly, charming, little girl....”
With a toss of her head, she shook from her face a few golden tresses that had strayed there—they shone with all the splendor of the sun—and sinking back deliciously upon the pillows, on which her light, her exceedingly light form left scarcely any imprint, she observed:
“I’m glad of that ... I can stay in bed a moment longer.... If I overslept, I might be late for dinner.... How tired I am! If you only knew how tired, tired, tired I am!”
She did not move again, but lay there passively, happily, submissive to the kisses which I rained upon her, though barely pressing my lips to her tortured wasted flesh.
No, I would tell her nothing! I would be very careful not to tell her anything! She did not suspect in the least. And what an immense good fortune that she did not know! Why enlighten her, indeed? No! My despair, my terror, my mortal danger, that must all remain for me alone! And she would never, never know! Since I was alone condemned, I alone would bear the horrors of my destiny. She, free, unknowing, redeemed, would be on her way back ... toward life! I alone would stay behind, silently turning my footsteps toward ... nonentity!... But for my silence I would be repaid with one supreme reward; the almost unbearable intoxication of this last love tryst, which would come to me pure, spotless, undisturbed, without a shadow of any kind upon it....
She was becoming more and more wakeful, and now was chatting with a ripple of words, words of no import, that entered like little gleams of freedom into the darkness of our prison.
She said:
“Imagine, dearest! At my dressmaker’s last Tuesday....”
And later on:
“You know very well whom I mean! Marie Thérèse, the ugly thing! I saw her! She was making up to you under my very nose, at the Squadron Ball....”
And again:
“The next time we go for a ride....”
I, meanwhile, kept drawing my two hands down caressingly over her silky hair and silky arms, hungrily absorbing every possible sensation of that living reality which was in her as her very self.... And I thought.... What was I, indeed, but a corpse, listening from the depths of a grave to living beings conversing on the sod overhead ...?
Yes, a corpse....
My gaze was fixed upon her bright sea-green eyes, and upon her delicate, gaily chirping lips; and within me was a scream of desperate anguish!
“You, you are my destroyer ... you! You crossed my path, and I followed you; and you guided me, almost by the hand, to the yawning gateway of the tomb! Yes, that was true: a will-o’-the-wisp of the deadliest lineage, leading the luckless wayfarer blindly to destruction! And I succumbed! Everything is lost ... for me! But now ... can’t you see, can’t you feel, my agony? You are gay? You laugh? You chatter? Is it not written on my face, is it not written in my heart, that I am doomed, that I shall never, never more set eyes upon you? Yes, it is all written there—my love, my fate, my death! And if you fail to read, it is because you know not how to read; and if you know not how to read, it is because you do not love. Oh my dear lost love! Oh my fragile Goddess! You do not love me ... so you will not miss me, overmuch.... You will find another man to love.... Youth will erase unhappy memories.... You will begin life anew ... life anew! Better thus! Much better thus! I ... I love you! I am saving you! I love you!”
And this last phrase I pronounced aloud, as though I were answering in those three words all that she had been saying to me:
“I love you ...!”
She stopped, and looked at me in astonishment. Then she burst into a gay laugh:
“You love me? You love me? Thanks, Monsieur! If ever you dared say you didn’t ...!”
To punish me, she drew my head down teasingly, and pressed her lips to mine, in a kiss that lasted ... that lasted, till I knew no more....
When her clasp relaxed, I sat up again. She had sunk gently back upon the pillows.
Suddenly her eyelids quivered.
“Oh!” she said; “how that kiss fatigued me! Dearest, it cannot be seven o’clock? Won’t you tell me that I needn’t get up? I’m so tired! So tired! It can’t be sev....”
She collapsed suddenly upon the pillows, her eyes closed.
The door behind me opened.