V
“Eidolon is not as cheerful as usual,” Eva said to Christian. “What has happened? Eidolon mustn’t be sad.”
He smiled and shook his head. But she had heard of the happening at the circus and also knew in what relation Adda Castillo had stood to Christian.
“I had a bad dream,” he said and told her of it.
“I dreamed that I was in a railroad station and wanted to take a train. Many trains came in but roared and passed with indescribable swiftness. I wanted to ask after the meaning of this. But when I turned around I saw behind me in a semi-circle an innumerable throng. And all these people looked at me; but when I approached them, they all drew away slowly and silently with outstretched arms. All about in that monstrous circle they drew silently away from me. It was horrible.”
She passed her hand over his forehead to chase the horror away. But she recognized the power of her touch and was frightened by her image in his eye.
When from the stage where she was bowing amid the flowers and the applause she perceived the touch of his glances she felt in them a threat of enslavement. When on his arm she approached a table and heard the delighted whisper of people at them both, she seemed to herself the victim of a conspiracy, and a hesitation crept into her bearing. When Crammon, practising a strange self-abnegation, spoke of Christian in extravagant terms, and Susan, even in their nocturnal talks, grew mythical concerning his high descent, when Cardillac grew restless and Cornelius Ermelang, the young German poet who adored her, asked questions with his timid eyes—when these things came to pass she feigned coldness and became unapproachable.
She scolded Susan, she made fun of Crammon, she laughed at Jean Cardillac, jestingly she bent her knee to the poet. She confused her entire court of painters, politicians, journalists, and dandies with her incomprehensible mimicry and flexibility, and said that Eidolon was only an illusion and a symbol.
Christian did not understand this—neither this nor her swift withdrawals from him, and then her turning back and luring him anew. A passionate gesture would arise and suddenly turn to reproof, and one of delight would turn into estrangement. It was useless to try to bind her by her own words. She would join the tips of her fingers and turn her head aside and look out of the corners of her eyes at the floor with a cool astuteness.
Once he had driven her into a corner, but she called Susan, leaned her head against the woman’s shoulder and whispered in her ear.
Another time, in order to test her feeling, he spoke of his trip to England. With charmingly curved hands she gathered up her skirt and surveyed her feet.
Another time, in the light and cheerful tone they used to each other, he reproached her with making a fool of him. She crossed her arms and smiled mysteriously, wild and subdued at once. She looked as though she had stepped out of a Byzantine mosaic.
He knew the freedom of her life. But when he sought for the motives that guided her, he had no means of finding them.
He knew nothing of the intellectual fire of the dancer, but took her to be a woman like any other. He did not see that that which is, in other women, the highest stake and the highest form of life, needed to be in her life but a moment’s inclination and a moment’s gliding by. He did not grasp the form in her, but saw the contour melt in glimmering change. Coming from the sensual regions of one possessed like Adda Castillo, he breathed here an air purified of all sultriness, which intoxicated but also frightened him, which quickened the beat of the heart but sharpened the vision.
Everything was fraught with presages of fate: when she walked beside him; when they rode side by side in the Bois de Boulogne; when they sat in the twilight and he heard her clear and childlike voice; when in the palm garden she teased her little monkeys; when she listened to Susan at the piano and let the bright stones glide through her fingers.
One evening when he was leaving he met Jean Cardillac at the gate. They greeted each other. Then involuntarily Christian stopped and looked after the man, whose huge form threw a gigantic shadow on the steps. Invisible little slaves seemed to follow this shadow, all bearing treasures to be laid at Eva’s feet.
An involuntary determination crystallized in him. It seemed important to measure his strength against this shadow’s. He turned back and the servants let him pass. Cardillac and Eva were in the picture gallery. She was curled up on a sofa, rolled up almost like a snake. Not far from those two, on a low stool, sat Susan impassive but with burning eyes.
“You’ve promised to drive with me to the races at Longchamp, Eva,” said Christian. He stood by the door to show that he desired nothing else.
“Yes, Eidolon. Why the reminder?” answered Eva without moving, but with a flush on her cheeks.
“Quite alone with me——?”
“Yes, Eidolon, quite alone.”
“My dream suddenly came back to me, and I thought of that train that wouldn’t stop.”
She laughed at the naïve and amiable tone of his words. Her eyes grew gentle and she laid her head back on the pillows. Then she looked at Cardillac, who arose silently.
“Good-night,” said Christian and went.
It was during these days that Denis Lay had arrived in Paris. Crammon had expected him and now welcomed him with ardour. “He is the one man living who is your equal and who competes with you in my heart,” Crammon had said to Christian.
Denis was the second son of Lord Stainwood. He had had a brilliant career at Oxford, where his exploits had been the talk of the country. He had formed a new party amid the undergraduates, whose discussions and agitations had spared no time-honoured institutions. At twenty-two he was not only a marksman, hunter, fisherman, sailor, and boxer, but a learned philologist. He was handsome, wealthy, radiant with life, and surrounded by a legend of mad pranks and by a halo of distinction and elegance—the last and finest flower of his class and nation.
Christian recognized his qualities without envy and the two became friends at once. One evening he was entertaining Cardillac, Crammon, Wiguniewski, Denis Lay, the Duchess of Marivaux, and Eva Sorel. And it was on this occasion that Eva, in the presence of the whole company, lightly broke the promise that she had given him.
Denis had expressed the desire to take her to Longchamp in his car. Eva became aware of Christian’s look. It was watchful, but still assured. She held a cluster of grapes in her hand. When she had placed the fruit back on the plate before her, she had betrayed him. Christian turned pale. He felt that she needed no reminder. She had chosen. It was for him to be quiet and withdraw.
Eva took up the cluster of grapes again. Lifting it on the palm of her hand she said with that smile of dreamy enthusiasm which seemed heartless to Christian now: “Beautiful fruit, I shall leave you until I am hungry for you.”
Crammon raised his glass and cried: “Whoever wishes to do homage to the lady of our allegiance—drink!”
They all drank to Eva, but Christian did not lift his eyes.