XVI
On an irregular square, from which numberless streets and alleys spread themselves out like rays, rises the Cathedral of St. Gudule. Light and transparent in architecture, bearing herself proudly--the church towers above the city where the ghosts of Horn and Egmont walk. Her walls are blackened as if they wore mourning for the crimes which men have committed here in God's name; and through her cool aisles sighs the mouldy breath of a vault. Gesa entered. It was dusky within; thick shadows covered the feet of the brown, worm-eaten benches. Only a few people still remained. In vain the violinist looked around for his bride. A couple of old women he saw: a child in a blue apron, stretching on tiptoe to reach the holy water, two beggars near the door--that was all. No priest was at the altar: service was over.
The child had tripped away: the old woman had hobbled off; for the last time Gesa's eye searched the church, then he went on to the high altar and kneeled down to say a prayer. In spite of the fantastic pantheism in which Delileo had brought him up, Gesa had always retained a strong leaning toward Catholic devotion. Suddenly he heard a sound,--a sigh. In the deepest shadow, almost at his feet, crouched a dark form. A tender trouble overcame him.
"Annette!" he whispered--"Annette!"
She rose up out of the shadow. She stared at him, gave a short cry, and clung shuddering to a pillar.
"Annette! What ails you!" he cried, shocked, almost angry. "Are you afraid of me?"
She shook her head. Was it the dusk that made her look so ashen pale?
"You come so suddenly, and I am ill;" she said.
"Ill, poor heart! Then truly I must have appeared to you like a ghost. And I wanted to enjoy your surprise! Foolish egotist that I am! Forgive me!" Thus he stammered, and forgetting where he was would have drawn her to him. She motioned him from her. "Not here!" she cried. Looking around at the sacred walls, with an intense gaze--"Not here!" Leaning on his arm she passed out of the church door.
The air was moist and sultry, clouds hung low, a swallow fluttered anxiously across the square. In comparison with the dusky gloom of the church it was still quite light here. Gesa raised questioning, longing eyes to the face of his beloved. It was deathly pale, the cheek thinner, the eyes larger, the lips darker than formerly; little lines about the mouth and nose, melancholy shadows around the eyes idealized its heretofore purely material beauty.
"I had quite forgotten how charming thou art," he murmured, in a voice stifled with passion. She smiled at him, a wild strange smile, in which she grew still more beautiful, and the shadows around her eyes deepened.
It suddenly seemed to him that she reminded him of some one, of something, but he searched his soul in vain. It could not be of the pale Malmaison roses whose tender heads drooped, on the pavement,--or,--no,--and yet--yes,--a little,--Annette reminded him of Guiseppina!
Her hand, which she had left to him passively in the beginning, nestled now more tenderly on his arm. When they would have turned their steps toward the Rue Ravestein, she held him back.
"What if we should make a detour," she whispered, "take me to the park, to all your favorite places, will you?"
"My heart! My treasure!" he murmured, drunk with the rapture of her presence.
An odor of withering flowers impregnated the air, mixed with the faint breath of fresh acacia blossoms. They entered the park. It was as if dead. Through the dark crowns of the trees there passed, from time to time, something like a shudder of fear.
"And you are really ill, Annette?" he asked.
"Yes," and her voice sounded hollow, like a suppressed cry of anguish: then she burst out passionately, "Why did you leave me alone!"
"You sent me away yourself," he replied, half playfully, "and then I had to go."
"That is true," she said, simply.
They were silent. It grew darker. All at once she stood still. "Here was a mire last autumn and you used to carry me over. Do you remember?"
He nodded smiling. They went a few steps further. The white reflection of the evening light played over the water of a reservoir.
"And here you told me about Nice and the Angers Bay."
Again he smiled, and they went on. They came to a statue. "There you gave me a villa in Bordighera. Have you forgotten how we built air castles?" said the girl.
The shuddering in the tree tops grew stronger.
She bent back her head and gazed up at her lover as if in a dream. "No one sees us," she whispered. "Kiss me!"
He kissed her long and passionately. "Again!" she whispered, so softly that her voice sounded like the rustling of the leaves.
He kissed her again, murmuring, "I never knew how fair life was until to-day!"
A long sobbing sigh passed through the trees. "Come home, or the thunderstorm will overtake us," she said--her voice had suddenly grown harsh. They turned back.