George took one and weighed it in the palm of his hand. "In less than five minutes I could be dead. Demetrius has left on this bed the hollow where I shall lie." And by an imaginary transposition it was himself whom he saw stretched on the couch. But that wood-tick! That wood-tick! He had a perception of being gnawed by the insects, as distinctly and as frightfully as if the animals were in his brain. This implacable gnawing came from the bed, and he perceived it. Then he understood the sadness of the man who, before dying, hears beneath him the gnawing of the wood-tick. When he pictured himself in the act of pressing the trigger, he felt an agonized and repulsive contraction of all his nerves. When he came to the conclusion that nothing forced him to kill himself, and that he could wait, he felt at the deepest recesses of his substance the spontaneous expansion of intense relief. A thousand invisible ties still bound him to life. "Hippolyte!"
He went towards the balcony, towards the light, with a sort of impetuosity. A background of an immense landscape, bluish and mysterious, melted in the languor of the day. The sun was slowly setting on the mountain, which it flooded with gold, like the couch of a mistress who awaited. The Majella, enormous and white, all bathed in this liquid gold, reared its huge mass in the sky.
III.
THE HERMITAGE.
CHAPTER I.
In her letter of May 10th, Hippolyte had said: "I can at last dispose of a free hour to write you a long letter. My brother-in-law has now been dragging his pain from hotel to hotel around the lake for the last ten days; and we both follow him like troubled souls. You could never imagine the melancholy of this pilgrimage. I myself am utterly exhausted; I await the first favorable opportunity to leave them. Have you already found the Hermitage?" She had said: "Your letters increase my torment inexpressibly. I know well your malady; and I divine that words fail you to express your suffering. I would give half of my blood to succeed in convincing you, once for all, that I am yours, absolutely yours, forever, until death. I think of you, of you only, uninterruptedly, every instant of my life. Away from you, I cannot enjoy one moment's calm and happiness. Everything disgusts and irritates me. Oh, when will it be given me to be with you entire days, to live your life! You will see; I shall no longer be the same woman. I shall be amiable, tender, gentle. I shall take care to be always the same, always discreet. I shall tell you all my thoughts, and you will tell me all yours. I shall be your mistress, your friend, your sister; and, if you believe me worthy, I will be also your counsellor. I have a lucid intuition of things, and a hundred times I have experienced this lucidity, which has never led me into error. My sole care will be to please you always, never to be a burden in your life. In me you should find only sweetness and repose.... I have many faults, my friend; but you will aid me to conquer them. You will make me perfect, for yourself. I await from you the first encouragement. Later, when I am sure of myself, I will say to you: Now I am worthy; now I have the consciousness of being what you desire. And you, too, will be proud to think that I owe you all, that I am your creature in everything; and then it will seem to you that I am more intimately yours, and you will love me always more, always more. It will be a life of love such as has never before been seen."
In a postscript: "I send you a rhododendron gathered in the park of Isola Madre.... Yesterday, in the pocket of that gray dress which you know, I found the note from Albano which I had asked you for as a souvenir. It is dated April 9th. It has been marked with several baskets of wood. Do you recall our great fires of love? Courage, courage! The renewal of happiness is approaching. In one week, in ten days at the most, I shall be wherever it pleases you. With you, no matter where."
CHAPTER II.
And George, who at heart hardly believed in success, but who was suddenly seized by an insensate ardor, attempted the supreme test.
He left Guardiagrele for the littoral, in quest of the Hermitage. The country, the sea, the motion, the physical activity, the variety of the incidents strewn along the course of this exploration, the singularity of his own condition—all these new things stirred him, restored his equilibrium, gave him an illusory confidence. It seemed to him that he had just escaped by a miracle from the assault of a mortal malady in which he had been face to face with death. For the first few days, life had for him that sweetness and depth which it only has for convalescents. Hippolyte's romantic dream floated about his heart.