In the darkness Teddy drowsed occasionally; but he never entirely lost consciousness. With tantalization his love grew furious. It was tinged with hatred now. He glanced across at the quiet girl with the shadows lying deep beneath her lashes. Her eyes were always shuttered; every time he hoped that he might surprise her watching him. The only person he surprised was the naval officer who feigned sleep the moment he knew he was observed. Did she really feel far more than she expressed? She gave him few proofs of it.
She had removed her hat for comfort. Once a fire-fly blew in at the window and settled in her hair. It wandered across her face, lighting up her brows, her lips—each memorized perfection. She raised her hand and brushed it aside. It flew back into the night, leaving behind it a trail of phosphorescence. His need of her was growing cruel.
He gave up his attempt at sleeping. Going out into the corridor, he opened a window and smoked a cigarette. Dawn was breaking. As the light flared and spread, he found that they were traveling a mountainous country. White towns, more Italian than French, gleamed on the crests of sun-baked hills. Roads were white. Rivers looked white. The sky was blue as a sapphire, and smooth as a silken curtain. The fragrance of roses hung in the air. Above the roar of the engine he could hear the cicalas chirping.
At six-thirty, as the train panted into Avignon, she awoke. “Hulloa! Are we there?”
She was so excited that in stepping from the carriage she would have left her hat behind if the naval officer hadn’t reminded her.
They drove through the town to the tinkling of water flowing down the gutters. The streets were narrow, with grated medieval houses rising gray and fortress-like on either side. Great two-wheeled wagons were coming in from the country; their drivers ran beside them, cracking their whips and uttering hoarse cries. All the way she chattered, catching at his lapels and sleeves to attract his attention. She was full of high spirits as a child. She kept repeating scraps of information which she had gathered from the naval officer. “He was quite a gentleman,” she said. And then, when she received no answer, “Didn’t you think that he was very kind?”
In the centre of the town they alighted in a wide square, the Place de la Republique, tree-shadowed, sun-swept, surrounded by public buildings and crooked houses. Carrying their bags, they sat themselves down at a table beneath an awning, and ordered rolls and chocolate.
Frowning over them, a little to their left, was a huge precipice of architecture, rising tower upon tower, embattled against the burning sky. Desire began to retail to him the information she had picked up in the train: how it was the palace of the popes, built by them in the fourteenth century while they were in exile. The source of her knowledge made it distasteful to him. He had difficulty in concealing his irritation. He felt as if he had sand at the back of his eyes. His gaze wandered from her to the women going back and forth through the sunlight, balancing loads on their heads and fetching long loaves of bread from the bakers. Hauntingly at intervals he heard a flute-like music; it was a tune commencing, which at the end of five notes fell silent. A wild-looking herdsman entered the square, followed by twelve black goats. He stood Pan-like and played; advanced a few steps; raised his pipe to his lips and played again. A woman approached him; he called to one of the goats, and squatting on his heels, drew the milk into the woman’s bowl. Through a tunnel leading out of the square, he vanished. Like faery music, his five notes grew fainter, to the accompaniment of sabots clapping across the pavement.
All the while that Desire had been talking, handing on what the stranger had told her about Avignon, he had watched the soul of Avignon wander by, dreamy-eyed and sculptured by the sunlight.
She fell silent. Pushing back her chair, she frowned at him. “I’m doing my best.—I don’t understand you. You’re chilly this morning.”