XII
I was sitting on the grass beside the rugged, windswept path which follows the curve of the sea. Instinctively I straightened up out of my careless attitude into the attitude of a woman in danger.
He is coming closer, he is very near....
He forces himself to assume the indifferent, I don't-know-you air of some one happening to be passing by, but he shortens his strides, and in spite of himself his face dilates and beams with the delight of the hunter striking the trail. A little more, and he'd let out a whistle.
Should I try to escape through the woods by cutting across the railroad track? Should I?...
"How do you do?"
"How do you do?"
The man is handsome, decidedly handsome, even in the full light, and I smile at his coming as I smiled a few moments ago when the sun climbed over the slope.
I had always seen him in the dusk when he returned to his smart white house held fast in a coil of green. He would stop a moment at the rusty gate and give me a lingering glance out of his long-lashed eyes. Yesterday evening when we passed each other on the road, his eyes were like black enamel, but now in the bare light of the morning they are of a more crystalline gray than the sea.
A tragic duel of looks ... a thousand questions asked and answered ... wonderful understanding ... dizziness ... unbearable dizziness.
He stands balancing himself on his feet searching the ground for the nascent lie. Then he puts a direct, confident question—is this magnificent weather going to last? I in my turn dissemble and scrutinize the silent, motionless horizon.
Safe! Hypocrisy between us. He has found a suitable topic and exploits it cleverly in jerky little phrases, rather sensual, like the kisses you give a child. He points his three-cornered head at me and tosses back his thick black mane.
He shuffles his feet. "Answer me," beg the glittering eyes. "Answer me.... I am asking you a question...."
No, I don't want to answer. A word thrown out now and then with the fervent assurance one always has under a desirous gaze; also the defensive attitude men force upon you. I lean over and begin to pluck the rich grass methodically, producing a fine, fresh scent and the dry, peaceful sound of a browsing beast. Two bare spots in the velvety slope and several light blades zigzagging in the wind....
Will he go?
He understands. His chest collapses like a pair of bellows and he draws his two long legs together ostentatiously.
Why this tricky manœuvring? Why thoughts unspoken? I am a part of the tender landscape to him, and I realize he is looking at me tenderly. Why not dare to make a pure, natural confession?
"Good-bye?"
"Good-bye."
I can't be irritated with this man; I haven't the courage to; the weather is too lovely.
When you see the jolly morning frolicking on the road in cap-and-bells and look over where the blue curve of paradise lovingly touches the brown curve of the earth, all you feel is a warm indulgence.
It is too beautiful. The trees mingle their branches, the rays of sunshine mingle their warmth, the birds mingle their songs. Down below, the tide is coming in with the rush of clanking chains submerged by a host of swift, frisky little waves....
And this man with the knavish eyes is nothing more than a black particle blown by the wind to the end of this promontory where a few clustered pines taper into the azure.
It is too beautiful. All you can do is close your eyes.
I close them—to shut out for a while the dazzle of the water in the indigo basin, the thousand golden bubbles in its centre, the thousand silver teeth biting at its edge. I don't want to think any more. All I want to feel are the warm darts which pierce my hands resting on the grass and the peculiar sense of well-being which takes the place of everything else....
Have I really slept?... Sweetness, the sweetness of lips kissed by breezes, a sweetness complete and overwhelming ... a delicious life.
But ... this black gown ... my dead ... I have nothing but my grief, nothing but my grief. What wrong have I perpetrated that my grief should forever sing in my ears?
Ah, just to forget.... Everywhere the earth breathing happiness, the blue, blue rolling waves, the almond trees veiled in faery whiteness, everywhere the nuptials of joy.
Grief, where are you? Everywhere space terribly alive, with hope in every color and death just died for the last time.