"You see, your trunks and your boxes are already here. Now, I'll leave you—alone. Be quick. Remember, I'm waiting. Every minute's delay will be one torture more. Remember——"
He left her alone. A few moments later he heard the splashing of the water which ran from the enormous sponge and fell back again into the bath-tub. He knew the icy coldness of this spring water well, and he imagined the little starts of Hippolyte's body, that long and flexible body, beneath the refreshing shower.
Then there remained nothing in his mind than thoughts of fire. Everything about him disappeared. And, when the splashing stopped, he was seized by a trembling so strong that his teeth began to chatter, as if shivering from a mortal fever. With the terrible eyes of desire, he saw the woman disengage herself from her dressing-gown, already dried, pure, delicate as an alabaster with golden tones.
CHAPTER VIII.
More fatigued now, almost fainting, Hippolyte sank gradually into slumber. By degrees the smile on her mouth became unconscious, disappeared. Her lips met for a second; then, with infinite slowness, they opened, and from between appeared a jasminelike whiteness. Again the lips met for a second; and again, slowly, very slowly, they parted, and from between reappeared the whiteness, moistened.
Raised on one elbow, George looked at her. She appeared so beautiful, so beautiful, beautiful in the same way as he had seen her the first time, in the mysterious oratory, in front of the philosopher Alexander Memmi's orchestra, amidst the evaporated perfume of the incense and the violets. She was pale, very pale, just as on that day.
She was pale, but it was that singular pallor which George had never found in any other woman—an almost mortal pallor, a profound and dead pallor which, when in the shade, became almost livid. A long shadow was cast on the upper part of her cheeks by the eyelashes; a masculine shadow, barely perceptible, veiled the upper lip. The mouth, large if anything, had a sinuous curve, very soft and yet sad, which, in the absolute silence, took on a very intense expression.
George thought: "How spiritual her beauty becomes in illness and in languor! Tired as she is now, she pleases me more. I recognize the unknown woman who passed before me that February evening—the woman who had not a single drop of blood left in her body. I believe that when she is dead she will attain the supreme perfection of her beauty.... Dead? And if she were to die? She would then become an object for thought, a pure ideality. I should love her after life without jealous inquietude, with a soothed and always even sorrow."
He recalled that in other circumstances he had already imagined Hippolyte's beauty in the peacefulness of death. "Oh, that day of the roses! Great sheafs of white roses languished in the vases in June, at the beginning of their love. She was dozing on the divan, motionless, almost breathless. And he had contemplated her for a long time; then a sudden phantasy had taken him to cover her with roses, softly, softly, so as not to awaken her; and he had arranged a few roses in her hair. But thus flowered and garlanded, she had appeared to him like a body without a soul, a corpse. This spectacle had filled him with terror; he had shaken her to arouse her; but she remained inert, paralyzed by one of those syncopes to which she was subject at that time. Oh, what terror, what anguish, until she recovered her senses! And also what enthusiasm for the sovereign beauty of that face, which was so extraordinarily ennobled by that reflection of death!" This episode recurred to his memory; but while he lingered over these strange thoughts, he felt a sudden impulse of pity and of remorse. He bent over to kiss the forehead of the sleeper, who remained unconscious of his kiss. It was with the greatest difficulty that he restrained himself from embracing her more ardently, so that she might be cognizant of his caress, and respond to it. And then he felt all the vanity of a caress which would not be to the loved object a rapid communication of joy; he felt all the vanity of a love which would not be a continual and immediate correspondence of acute sensations; he felt the impossibility of becoming intoxicated unless an equally intense intoxication should correspond with his own.
"Am I certain," he thought, "am I positively certain that always, when I have enjoyed her, she has enjoyed me? How often has she been present, a lucid witness, during my moments of delirium? How often has my ardor appeared senseless to her?" A heavy wave of anxieties invaded him while he contemplated the sleeping woman. "The true and profound sensual communion is also a chimera. The senses of my mistress are as obscure as her soul. Never shall I succeed in surprising in her fibres a secret disgust, an appetite unsatisfied, an irritation unappeased. Never shall I succeed in knowing the different sensations which are given to her by a similar caress repeated at different moments. In the course of a single day, an organism as unhealthy as hers passes through a great number of physical states, each in discord with the other, and sometimes in complete opposition. Such an instability misleads the most penetrating clairvoyance. The same caress which, at dawn, draws from her moans of pleasure, may, an hour later, seem to her importunate. Consequently, it is possible that her nerves become hostile towards me, in spite of her will. A kiss which I prolong too far, and which gives me the vertigo of supreme enjoyment, may in her flesh arouse impatience. In the matter of sensuality, however, simulation and dissimulation are common to all women, to those who love and to those who do not. What do I say? The woman who loves, the passionate woman, is more inclined to physical simulation and dissimulation; because she fears to grieve her lover if she shows she is little disposed to surrender herself entirely. Moreover, the passionate woman often delights in exaggerating the semblance of pleasure; because she knows well that that will flatter the man's virile pride and increase his ecstasy. I confess that a proud joy swells my heart when I see Hippolyte delirious with sensual delight. I feel she is happy at thus showing herself so vanquished and prostrated by my power; and she also knows that my vain ambition as a young lover is precisely to succeed in making her plead for mercy, in drawing from her a convulsive cry, in seeing her fall back exhausted on the pillow. Which, then, in these demonstrations, is the share of the physical sincerity and that of the passionate exaggeration? Is not her ardor an artificial attitude, assumed to please me? Does she not often sacrifice herself to my desire without desiring me? Has she not, at times, to repress a commencement of repugnance?"