He mounted the steps and turned to take in the familiar landscape with a last glance. The well-curbs and the clear outlines of some of the sanctuaries rose round him like apparitions. He could see opposite him the dark mountains, and portions of the lake on either side the hill. Even at this distance he could no longer see the Belvedere Hotel, which was hidden by the hillside, though it was just this that he was looking for. These stones he trod on, these trees and chapels, all these vague outlines which the sun would presently restore in their full values, he would bear away with him in his memory. So long as he should have the power to remember them he should see them all in his mind’s eye, not for their own particular grace, but subordinated as scenes and accessories for one principal figure. Even at a distance, this chief figure, this unique flower of his youth, still exerted its fascination over him. Instead of fleeing from it, fleeing without a backward look, he stood motionless in this place that Edith had so loved, where she had longed to be with her roses in her hands, the evening of their anniversary, that last day of their happiness.
In their room there she was sleeping still, deliciously tired. In an hour, in two hours, perhaps sooner, when she rose to come and join him, she would find his cruel letter on the dressing-table, telling her in tender words that the moment for their separation had come. She would not understand it quite at once. The papers enclosed in the envelope would tell her more. They were the hotel bill, paid and receipted, some banknotes, and a receipt for the money deposited in her name with the International Bank of Milan, the sum completed by Margaret Roquevillard’s cheque which Maurice had endorsed to her. By these she would see what it was that had come between them and broken her sway. The family which she had vanquished was recapturing her lover. She would give a great cry of sorrow then. However far away he might be from her, he should hear her cry resounding in his ears....
In the woods the moonlight was losing itself in the light of morning. The hour was passing. He leant against one of the columns, and could not make up his mind to go.
“Where did I get the courage,” he asked himself, “to break her heart and mine? She is there, quite near me yet. If I go back again she’ll never know. Her waking will be sweet and easy. But no, I shall never see her again. There are ties that love cannot obliterate. Happiness, I can understand it now, is not one’s right. I wound her, yet I love her. The wrong she did me was involuntary. I don’t remember anything but having felt life near her, of having lived it near her each minute to the full; and yet I can’t stay near her now any more. Do you remember our first days, Edith? You gave me some flowers the first evening. And then you gave me your lips, as sweet as flowers, and were glad to give them. When you said to me, ‘I will be yours, but yours alone, when you want me,’ I could feel even then your caresses that made you one flesh with mine. Because you are too sensitive to love’s touch, because even now when I am going to make you suffer, I tremble for your frailty, tremble for the future, oh, Edith, don’t think I love you less. When I realise that for that very thing in you I may lose you one day, Edith, I ought not to think this of you, yet perhaps I love you all the more. What memories shall you keep of me? Between two autumns our love has run its course. You preferred this autumn season, when nature’s mood is high. I found its gold again in your eyes, and its fever in your arms. I discovered enthusiasm in it, and desire. Now it is like the chrysanthemums in the cemetery at Orta for me. It covers Death. Yes, death, you understand. I have not said good-bye to you, yet all is over for us. It is like death for us. You will weep as you have been used to do. You’ll talk, you’ll walk, you’ll be for others a living creature, a being of grace and youth: but for me, who shall know nothing more of you, you will be as if you had died. It might be better if you were dead indeed: you would not curse me—curse me who love you, and who must choke our love——”
The whistle of a train caught him back brutally from this state of desperate reflection, in which little by little his will was losing force. Had he waited too long here? No, that must be the express which comes down to Novare, and which gets in a few minutes before the up train to Domodossola. The opportune summons resolved him in his last decision. He left the chapel, crossing the woods at a run and reaching the railway station in a few moments. On the mountains the day was growing brighter, and the moon had begun to efface itself in space. He bought a ticket for Corconio, a station quite near Orta, but in a direction opposite that to which he must travel, his idea being to hinder Edith’s search should she try to overtake him. On the way he would pretend that he had made a mistake.
As far as Omegna the railway follows the height above the little lake. In the railway carriage Maurice seated himself so as to ride backwards, and leaned over the door so that his gaze might take the impress of these places that had so belonged to him. In the rising daylight the waters of the lake wrinkled and quivered lightly. The trees of the peninsula showed him their tapering trunks and the play of their branches. Here he had known happiness. The train left Omegna. In vain he tried to see Orta Novarese still, to retain in his eyes, in his heart, the look of this land from which he fled. The seconds which made the distance grow fell like stones in a whirlpool—one by one he heard them.
An hour later he arrived at Domodossola, a little Italian town perched among the high Alps, bathed by the green and rapid Rosa above Lago Maggiore. From here the stage between Italy and Switzerland, by way of the Simplon Pass, made its regular departures. With good teams of horses and well-posted relays, it covered the sixty-four kilometres between the Vale of Ossola and the valley of the Rhone in a dozen hours.
The journey costs about one louis, and to acquit himself fully of any debt to Edith Maurice had almost exhausted his own resources. He had consulted the time-tables. By way of Turin the fare was too dear. When he should have paid the third-class rate from Orta to Domodossola, and from Brieg to Chambéry, he should have left in his pockets, according to his calculations, nothing but the price of three or four very modest meals. It was truly the return of the prodigal son. He bore without displeasure the penury which made him one with the humble workmen with whom he shared the compartment. It distracted him from his pain by its shabby trials. Besides, it gave him no real concern. He knew how nice people sometimes managed their little economies to afford their carriage and expensive houses at Brieg. At the head of the pass, the hospice of the Simplon, like the one at the Grand St. Bernard, gave free hospitality to the poor who crossed the mountain, and even tourists were not ashamed to profit by it. His neighbour from Piedmont, who knew the country, ended up by instructing him on the subject. “The hospice is always open,” he said. “Day and night, night and day. At night you just go in and find a room on the first floor, without saying anything to anybody.”
Thus the difficulties of the journey were made simple. He would go through the Simplon on foot, and sleep at the hospice.
At Domodossola, the extreme end of the line, he got out of the train, and started out proudly by the side of the diligence, which stood in front of the station, and, once filled with passengers, started off at a trot, the ardour of the five horses very fresh at the beginning of the interminable ascent. The guard took a good look at this well-dressed young man with a satchel in his hand who was not afraid to use his shoes. He brought his team to a stop, cracked his whip to attract attention, and with a gallant gesture, as if he were offering a lady some bouquet, he pointed to a vacant seat in the coupé.