XVII
He entered.
I cannot say how I reacted to the first steps he took into my life. I have only a confused impression left. The man who entered was not one to whom I could be indifferent. He was an aspect of my own being which was taking form and moving outside myself without recognizing me.
He approached shyly enough. My heart rose ... he approached ... I felt vaguely that a large event involving me was taking place in far-off regions, and the shadow of his body spread an immense new something before my eyes.
I thought him very gentle. I noticed the metallic clearness of his restless gaze, and that his figure suggested a great tree which dominates the other trees and lowers its branches so as not to be alone.
What was he going to do among these people, what attitude would he, the single sane person in the entire gathering, assume? How was he going to behave in this brilliant drawing-room filled with twittering women, dazzling lights, bare shoulders, ripples of laughter, and heavy perfumes?
I had tried hard to cut a figure but soon had to confess myself beaten. The women spoke a language not like the rest of the world's. Their vocabulary was limited to "masterpiece," "infamous," "divine," "diabolical," "delicious," "intriguing." In their presence an average, disgracefully normal, tame creature like myself without vices or virtues, had to keep mum.
The old gentleman advancing screened my escape from the group in which I had been trapped, and I managed to retreat to a safe corner, from which I saw the women fasten on him with a buzz of talk, a whole gamut of rosy bosoms and a great display of fireworks.... Further off the hostess was keeping a watchful eye to see that no one of the women distinguished herself too much. The elderly laughing gentleman must have been some one of importance....
The tobacco-laden air was gradually getting to be unbreathable. The noise pounded incessantly. I sat riveted to my chair without daring to move, as though a nightmare were upon me, the sort in which a terrible load oppresses your chest, though you remain conscious. "I am dying, I am dying." The load weighs more heavily. "No, I am dreaming, I am going to wake myself up." But you are impotent; you can't shake the load off and you can't come out of the nightmare.
It was just as I was exerting every muscle and scrap of courage to escape from the oppressive spectacle—I had devised a polite pretext—when he entered.
The hostess went to meet him with her wide smile, her hand uplifted, and the phrase of greeting she had repeated at least twenty times since I had been in the room.
She steered him my way, threw out a rising syllable, a descending syllable, like two balls between our two faces, and then propelled him over to the group while I listened to the muffled echo of his name bury itself in my heart.
I forgot the smoke, the noise, my eagerness to leave. Even the weight lifted from my chest in the very way a nightmare suddenly takes wing and yields to a dream of clear, bright meanderings.
They did not pay much attention to him. The loud dame who presided over the group captured all eyes. She was plump and short; as she talked she flapped her arms like fins, and every now and then let out from her chest as from a great case a vibrant laugh, which sent undulations over her salmon-colored bosom. When she herself had done laughing, she would cast her eyes about in quest of approval as though levying tribute from the faces. But when she encountered the newcomer, she had to stop because his frank gaze pronounced disapproval and denial.
How I wanted to thank him!
The company had been too much for me; it became too much for him. Soon I saw him cast about for a retreat.... For a second his eyes glided over me, I alarmed him as he had alarmed me. Then he slunk away, with the same crushed, crestfallen manner that I must have had.
He walked off ... the curtain of palms ... he disappeared.
By fits and starts the nightmare returned, clutching me with clammy tentacles. The noise fell in slabs, the weight on my chest suffocated me. Through a mist phantoms glided by, exchanging absurd bows, disjointed gestures, and disconnected remarks. A woman in a spangled gown with hair like flaxen wood-shavings turned and showed a chalky face. Others followed her, branded with painted red smiles. They were all hurrying. Refreshments were being served under the rotunda. The subdued clash of silver against glass sounded along with the clatter of china, little exclamations, and the shuffling of feet.
I am dreaming. Impossible that a gathering of human beings should be such an outrage on life, such a parody of it. When living persons come together and have attired themselves beautifully, it is for the interchange of what is best in them, not for the spilling of gall and the raising of a hubbub. I must be dreaming.
Little groups were coming back; women's laughter cut the curdled air like sharp lashes.
Again I made a painful effort and rose. With the looks of the women riddling me and paralyzed by the men's attention, I crossed the room driven by a force that operated for me. I found myself beside him.
He raised his eyes slowly. Did he smile? I no longer know. But he looked—as I must have looked—as though he were gazing into light.