And yet I could not have declared even then what I desired. Flattering relief from unflattering dubiety was perhaps nearest it—since, to speak truth, the idea of this Carabas as a rival was positively insupportable to me. And afterwards, supposing that reassurance granted? I could not be blind to a certain anterior tendency in things—at least as it had affected myself—nor to the inevitable consequences, had not that tendency been violently checked. Did I want it resumed, then, simply in order to deny it? Unlikely, at least; and if not——?
I was in fact an irresolute, uncommendable jackass, if with some lingering instincts yet for rectitude and disinterestedness. And, on the strength of those survivals, I sought weakly to justify myself, saying, If I have been full of inconsistencies in my moods, so has Fifine been in her contributions to them, at one moment seeming to imply what at the next she would seem to refute, whereby I was provoked into an attitude of loverliness, which, though fictitious, was demoralising in itself. If she had only stood resolute to our compact, I should never have thought of her but as the good gossip and reasonable comrade.
And straightway I cursed myself for my meanness. That I should seek to shift the blame for my irresolution to those shoulders upon which no burden but love should ever be laid. She inconsistent—Fifine inconsistent? Yes, by the sweet testimony of her womanliness, without which she would have been as little Fifine as the companion of my choice.
The thought brought an instant pang with it. To touch upon her womanly side was to feel the sharp sense of loss of all which that might imply in possession. And yet how could one talk of losing what was never his? A paradox, for lovers to answer through their dreams. I leave the explanation to them; and there is one.
I would not yet, you see, confess myself of their kin; but I held myself as it were detached, prepared to advance or retreat as circumstances suggested. Our days, Fifine’s and mine, had been full of perversities and contradictions, but we had reached a point at last when our sentiments must confess their true inner properties, and declare for either attraction or repulsion. Then we should see.
After parting from the Frenchman, I went down the hill at a long slant, striking again the road, by which Fifine and I had come, at some half-mile below the village. I had no very definite plan in my head, save that of a politic absenteeism; at the same time I had no intention to let my emotions get the better of my enjoyment of a perfect day. My correspondence with Hénault suggested to me the idea of a closer examination of the Neocomian limestone of the opposite range, together with an exploration of the ground about what was known as the Roman Camp, where it was possible I might alight on fragments of metal or pottery of an interesting description. That would do as well as anything to give a savour to exercise; the only question was food. I did not relish a return to les Baux, with the possibilities it entailed of a most inexpedient encounter; yet where else was I to procure what I needed? After a moment’s reflection, I set off with a determination to walk back to Paradou. It was but three miles, and, quit of the rücksack, I could easily take it into the itinerary I proposed for myself.
It was past midday when I reached the Grand Café Bellin. The household greeted my prompt return with astonishment, attributing it to some fatality, but were reassured and diverted on my putting it down to the accident of a lost letter, which I fancied I might have dropped in my bedroom. Was there such a letter? Was there in fact the least necessity for my inventing any such excuse for my reappearance? No; but I wanted to go up and sentimentalise over the empty room. The feeling, the pretext, had seized me in a moment, and irresistibly.
I went—but not into my individual cubicle—and I stood there a minute, humouring, half pathetically, half jestingly, my own folly. Then I bent, and just touched with my lips the place where her head had lain; and looked round and saw the centipede lying where it had fallen; and smiled, and shook my silly noddle, and went downstairs again. No doubt, the good inn folks regarded me as a lunatic for putting myself to all this trouble and exertion on behalf of a trumpery letter: my sanity would have been much more in evidence to them had I confessed the sentimental truth. So are they built; and so are we not. That was the irony of it: they thought me a fool for doing the very thing that I did to avoid being thought a fool.
“No, it is not there,” I said; “but no matter. One may waste time less profitably, I find, than in renewing one’s acquaintance with Monsieur and Madame Bellin.”
They were pleased at that—blarney is a recognised currency in France—and paid me with a generous measure of the bread and figs, which, with a bottle of wine, was all I took from them for my al fresco meal. Then, my pockets comfortably loaded, I bade adieu to the inn for the second time, and started on my roundabout way back.