There was one who didn’t haggle over the defence of the house!
I made the most of the unusual excitement to steal away. I had no objection to Martinod being slapped, so long as I profited by it in some way. I had been feeling myself more closely watched; opportunities to slip away were becoming rare. With all speed I made off to the street and rushed in the direction of the town. But as soon as I reached the Market Place I began to walk slowly, even putting on an unconcerned, indifferent manner, as of a loiterer who has no special point in view and doesn’t quite know where he is going. Thus I proceeded toward the circus, and started to walk around it, being careful to look about me carelessly, to show plainly that I was walking without a purpose. No one could be mistaken. How many times had I executed this little manœuvre and not always with success! If Nazzarena was there, occupied with some household duty, that was no reason why I should approach her, or even greet her. As a general thing I went past her without speaking, stiff as a poker. Our first conversation had exhausted my courage, and moreover I did not know what to talk about next. Sometimes she would laugh at me as she saw me pass—for when it came to playing with me or mocking at me she would lay aside her professional gravity as a horsewoman. Sometimes she would call me. I always went to her at her call, but not for worlds would I have spoken first.
That day she was leading her horse to water at the public fountain. Seen without his trappings and the blaze of torches with which the tent was lighted during performances, this steed appeared to me singularly like our farmer’s old blind mare that I had occasionally bestridden; it was a long bony beast, continually wrinkling his skin all over his body to shake off the flies. But I immediately closed my eyes to so pitiful a sight, and imagined in its place the red roan steed of the Romance of the Swan’s Nest which, in my book of ballads, bore the Knight to the young girl sitting in the grass by the river side, her bare feet in the water.
My adored one was absorbed in her work, or pretended to be, and did not deign to observe my presence. There was nothing for it but to keep on my way, since she would not turn her eyes toward me. And that horse kept on drinking, as if he were capable of drinking the fountain dry. It was enough to make one desperate! At last she turned her head. She was laughing. The naughty girl! She had seen me then! But in her most natural tone, as if she had suddenly discovered me, she bade me good morning.
Having given up hope of her speaking, I found nothing to say. My discomfited face no doubt betrayed my feelings, for she seemed not displeased with my silence, and even spoke of it:
“So, you are dumb to-day?” she asked, laughing all the more heartily as she added, “Aha! so you aren’t my little lover any more?”
I hung my head to conceal my embarrassment. Not love her any more! The foolish question! When one loved it was for always. The word always, which my lips could never have uttered, made a strange music in my heart, so sweet that nothing sweeter could ever be heard in the world.
Reassured as to my condition, and no doubt as to the effect she produced upon me, she calmly pulled the halter. Her horse had ceased to drink and from his moist nostrils drops of water were falling back into the basin.
IV
MY BETRAYAL
BECAUSE of that word always, continually singing in my heart, the days that followed were at once delicious and bitter, like the fruit that I used to gather too early in the garden. I was sure of the future and indeed of all eternity, enjoying to the full the love that as yet asks for nothing outside of itself. For the slight distress that I had felt at the contact of Nazzarena’s cheek when our heads had been jokingly bumped together had soon passed; nothing indeed was lacking to fill the cup of my happiness but never to see my beloved; my embarrassment returned whenever we met. If at least I had not been obliged to speak to her! I could not have endured to kiss her—I never so much as touched her hand. Each of us—so I think now—perhaps believed in the superiority of the other: she because my house was so solid, and I because of her horse, her golden robe, her talent as a horsewoman, her wandering life, and that indefinable something with which love endowed her. She soon perceived that the two sides were not equal: she could appear in public and be applauded; I was a mere spectator.