"If you'd get out of the habit of thinking that death is of any more importance than going to sleep, you wouldn't bother about anything," Mère Gontran declared.
"Oh, it isn't death that worries me," Sylvia answered. "It's life."
Very early in the twilight of a wet dawn Sylvia started for Kieff. All day she watched the raindrops trickling down the windows of the railway carriage and wondered if her impulse to travel south was inspired by any profounder reason.
CHAPTER III
ON the day after she reached Kieff Sylvia went for a walk by herself. Since she was going to stay only a week in this city and since she still felt somewhat remote from the world after her long seclusion, she had not bothered to make friends with any of her fellow-artistes.
Presently she grew tired of walking alone and, looking about her, she saw on the other side of the road a cinema theater, where she decided to spend the rest of a dreary afternoon. She was surprised to find that the lowest charge for entrance was two rubles; but when she went inside and saw the film, she understood the reason. The theater was full of men, and she could hear them whispering to one another their astonishment at seeing a woman enter the place; she was thankful that the dim red light concealed her blushes, and she escaped as quickly as possible, quenching the impulse to abuse the doorkeeper for not warning her what kind of an entertainment was taking place inside.
This abrupt and violent reminder of human beastliness shocked Sylvia very deeply at a moment when she was trying to induce in herself an attitude of humility; it was impossible not to feel angrily superior to those swine groveling in their mess. Ordinarily she might have obliterated the incident with disdain, or at any rate have seen its proportion to the whole of human life. But now with war closing in upon the world, and with all the will she had to idealize the abnegation of the individual that was begotten from the monstrous crime of the mass, it was terrible to be brought up sharply like this by the unending and apparently unassailable rampart of human vileness. It seemed to her that the shame she had felt on finding herself inside that place must even now be marked upon her countenance, and there was not a passer-by whose criticism and curiosity she could keep from fancying intently directed toward herself. Anxious to elude the sensation of this commentary upon her action, she turned aside from the pavement to stare into the first shop-window that presented itself, until her blushes had burned themselves out. The shop she chose happened to be a jeweler's, and Sylvia, who never cared much for precious stones, was now less than ever moved by any interest in the barbaric display that winked and glittered under the artificial stimulus of shaded electric lamps. She tried to see if she could somehow catch the reflection of her cheeks and ascertain if indeed they were flaming as high as she supposed. Presently a voice addressed her from behind, and, looking round, she saw a slim young soldier well over six feet tall, with slanting almond eyes and wide nostrils. He pointed to a row of golden hand-bags set with various arrangements of precious stones and asked her in very bad French if she admired them. Sylvia's first impulse, when her attention was drawn to these bags for the first time, was to say that she thought them hideous; but a sympathetic intuition that the soldier admired them very much and would be hurt by her disapproval tempted her to agree with him in praising their beauty. He asked her which of them all she liked the best; and in order not to spoil this childish game of standing outside a shop-window and making imaginary purchases, she considered the row for a while and at last fixed upon one that was set with emeralds, the gold of which had a greenish tint. The soldier said that he preferred the one in the middle that was set with rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and emeralds, which was obviously the most expensive and certainly the most barbaric of the whole collection. Was Sylvia sure that she had chosen the one she liked the best? She assured him that her choice was unalterable, and the soldier, taking her by the arm, bade her enter the shop with him.
"I can't afford to buy a bag," Sylvia protested.
"I can," he replied. "I want to buy you the bag you want."
"But it's impossible," Sylvia argued. "Even if I could give you anything in return, it would still be impossible. That bag would cost two thousand rubles at least."