XVI
An arbor at the water's edge. Cool green leaves. Flowers. Boughs striped with sunshine. Close by, the peacefulness of a sleepy stream.
We had decided to celebrate our second wedding anniversary here. We rose early in the morning, set out arm in arm, keeping step, and came to this springtime nook as if to a rendezvous arranged by spring itself.
The setting for our lunch was all it should be—the midday sun blazing down upon the surrounding country, the table garlanded with flowers, the scenery framed in the arch of the arbor.
Two years....
The afternoon passed tranquilly.
He was seated close beside me. I saw his profile against the bank and the misty line where the horizon was falling asleep. His wandering gaze was caught by everything and rested on nothing. He seemed to be summing up each breath of nature, each line, each feature, and he had eyes only—this being a day apart from other days—for the broad effects of the great stretch of landscape.
A halt. We count on our fingers, we hold a mental roll-call before turning back.... Presently, when we start on our homeward walk, the great amphitheatre of vapors, the slope fringed with trees, the belt of mist will each one by one be making their quivering signs.
Two years. What has my love become, my hope, the spirit without end which dwelt within me?... We are two, that is all.
The same current of the spirit—if not the same spirit—drives its waves through us. The same flame—if not the same heart—mounts within us. The same love of truth—if not the same truth—throws the light of day between us. And nothing but silence is needed for us to be close and united.
We love each other better than ever; we no longer talk to each other.
Had anyone said to me the first day of our marriage: "You will want to explain everything to him, what you are, what you see, what you wish; you will want to find out from him what he is, what he sees, what he wishes; you will also want to find out what in both of you is reconcilable and perhaps, above all, what is irreconcilable: this is his concern or interest, this is your concern or interest," I should have nodded my head. "Yes, exactly."
But if I had also been told: "A day will come when you will have nothing more to learn of each other, nothing more to tell each other; without mutual explanations you will understand everything," I should have denied the possibility. I should have cried out that a whole century wouldn't be enough to bring two human beings into harmony, because human beings change from second to second. I should have said it was blasphemy.
But the day did come.
There is a region of soft azure outlines where words have been extinguished. He exists and I exist.
It is a little green arbor where nothing, in short, binds us together, neither the flaming leafage, nor the smell of invisible murmuring water, nor the languishing hour; neither the nights past and gone, nor the days to come, nor the little child asleep at home in his cradle. If anything binds us together, it is the freedom that each of us has found, nothing else.
One must never say "This is love," for love is the heaven that the heart has in prospect, and the whole of space is yet to be traversed.... It is an immense feeling which speaks and impels you and is made up of certainty and clearness.
I am sure of him.
He might see a weapon of crime in my hands—or at least some symbolic weapon, something he holds a crime—without a shrug of his shoulders. Remembering that my tenderness is unfailing, he would say to me "all right," then he would come to me to find out why what I was doing was right.
And he is sure of me. He could leave us, his hearth, his love, his child, without so much as a glance back. I should merely say: "He had to go, he must submit to our love, and go his own way. That is how we love each other."
A moment at the foot of a hill, a great moment, so welcoming, so stable, and so peaceful that it is like an open doorway before which you must commune with yourself before entering. Two years gone by. Before me the rest of my life.
I have also had my doubts and fears. In the beginning I said to myself: "Will life allow such a love? What will become of this ardor and determination? And he, will he allow me to love him as my heart dictates?"
We have gone through daily cares together, poverty, weariness, all the formidable common things. We got many laughs and more strength out of them. In the evening his step would sound on the dark landing; I would run to the door to meet his smile; he would kiss me; the hours would fly.... That is the way two years unrolled their seasons and brought forth their fruits, and we became strict with each other because perfection revealed her face to us from afar.
So, without a word said, by minutes added to minutes, by the divine simplicity to which one approaches, you reach the promised land and the very heart of love.
I say what I see. Life does allow all the ardor, all the sublimity of two human beings to flourish; and in their relation to each other she grants even the impossible. I say what he and I are.
With one accord we rise, we know it is time. Our child is waiting for us, our house, our to-morrows, a thousand impatient desires, and all the things you don't think of in advance.
We follow the line of the bank. Where to? I do not know, but I know it is sweet, very sweet, and his arm is linked in mine.
Ahead of us are two banks set with houses and edged with reeds sharp-edged and long as swords.
It gives you a sort of dizziness to follow the banks straight ahead without removing your eyes. These two lines, separated forever and mingled forever by the current, are fascinating.
A marvel. Is it not a marvel? An arch. Rising from the ground on either side, its loving, solid curve clasps both banks and brings them together in an embrace. Nevertheless they are like two convicts. Yet at one point they become a single bank; they touch, they merge. Then they go on, their bed widening out. In spite of appearances they are still closely united in order to sustain the deepening river which will place its mouth on the mouth of the ocean.
Yes ... one more look....
Above the slope leaning down to lull itself in bliss, the sky has just enshrined a light cloud the color of periwinkles, and the arch resounds like an Hallelujah in stone.
Come.