They had come out of the Casino at about eleven o'clock, escorted by Brion, who had left them at the villa, and, when they were alone, the Baroness had asked her friend to walk a while in the garden to enjoy the night, which was really divine. Enveloped in their furs, they began to pace the terrace and the silent alleys, captivated by the contrast between the feverish atmosphere in which they had spent the evening and the peaceful immensity of the scene that now surrounded them. And the contrast was no less surprising between the Baroness Ely at roulette and the Baroness Ely walking at this hour.
The moon, shining full in the vast sky, seemed to envelop her with light, to cast upon her a charm of languorous exaltation. Her lips were half open, as though drinking in the purity of the cold, beautiful night, and the pale rays seemed to reach her heart through her eyes, so intently did she gaze at the silver disk which illumined the whole horizon with almost the intensity of noon. The sea above all was luminous, a sea of velvet blue, over which a white fire, quivering and dying, traced its miraculous way. The atmosphere was so pure that in the bright bay one could distinguish the rigging of two yachts, motionless, at anchor by the Cape, upon whose heights stood the crenellated walls of the old Grimaldi palace. The huge, dark mass of Cape Martin stretched out on the other side; and everywhere was the contrast of transparent brilliancy and sharp, black forms, stamped on the dream-like sky. The long branches of the palms, the curved poignards of the aloes, the thick foliage of the orange trees hung in deep shadow over the grass where the fairy moonlight played in all its splendor.
One by one the lights went out in the houses, and from the terrace the two women could see them, white amid the dark olives sleeping in the universal sleep that had fallen everywhere. The quiet of the hour was so perfect that no sound could be heard but the crackling of the gravel under their small shoes, and the rustle of their dresses. Madame de Carlsberg was the first to break the silence, yielding to the pleasure of thinking aloud, so delicious at such a time and with such a friend. She had paused a moment to gaze more intently at the sky:—
"How pure the night is, and how soft. When I was a child at Sallach, I had a German governess who knew the names of all the stars. She taught me to recognize them. I can find them still: there is the Pole Star and Cassiopeia and the Great Bear and Arcturus and Vega. They are always in the same place. They were there before we were born, and will be after we are dead. Do you ever think of it—that the night looked just the same to Marie Antoinette, Mary Stuart, Cleopatra, all the women who, across the years and the centuries, represent immense disasters, tragic sorrows, and splendid fame? Do you ever think that they have watched this same moon and these stars in the same part of the heavens, and with the same eyes as ours, with the same delight and sadness; and that they have passed away as we shall beneath these motionless stars, eternally indifferent to our joy and misery? When these thoughts come to me, when I think of what poor creatures we are, with all our agonies that cannot move an atom of this immensity, I ask myself what matter our laws, our customs, our prejudices, our vanity in supposing that we are of any importance in this magnificent eternal and impassive universe. I say to myself that there is but one thing of value here below: to satisfy the heart, to feel, to drain every emotion to the bottom, to go to the end of all our desires, in short, to live one's own life, one's real life, free of all lies and conventions, before we sink into the inevitable annihilation."
There was something frightful in hearing these nihilistic words on the lips of this beautiful young woman, and on such a night, in such a scene. To the tender and religious Madame Brion these words were all the more painful since they were spoken with the same voice that had directed the croupier where to place the final stake. She greatly admired Ely for that high intelligence which enabled her to read all books, to write in four or five languages, to converse with the most distinguished men and on every subject.
Trained until her seventeenth year in the solid German manner, the Baroness Ely had found, at first in the society of the Archduke, then in her life in Italy, an opportunity for an exceptional culture from which her supple mind of a demi-Slave had profited.
Alas! of what use was that learning, that facile comprehension, that power of expression, since she had not learned to govern her caprices—as could be seen in the attitude at the roulette table—nor to govern her thoughts—which was too well shown by the sombre creed that she had just confessed? That inner want, among so many gifts and accomplishments, once more oppressed the faithful friend, who had never brought herself to admit the existence of certain ideas in her companion of Sacré-Cœur. And she said:—
"You speak again as though you did not believe in another life. Is it possible that you are sincere?"
"No, I do not believe in it," the Baroness replied, with a shake of her pretty head, a breath of air lifting the long, silky fur of her sable cape. "That was the one good influence my husband had over me; but he had that. He cured me of that feeble-heartedness that dares not look the truth in the face. The truth is that man has never discovered a trace of a Providence, of a pity or justice from on high, the sign of anything above us but blind and implacable force. There is no God. There is nothing but this world. That is what I know now, and I am glad to know it. I like to oppress myself with the thought of the ferocity and stupidity of the universe. I find in it a sort of savage pleasure, an inner strength."
"Do not talk like that," interrupted Madame Brion, clasping her arms around her friend as though she were a suffering sister or a child. "You make me feel too sad. But," she continued, pressing the hand of the Baroness while they resumed their walk, "I know you have a weight on your heart of which you do not tell me. You have never been happy. You are less so than ever to-day, and you blame God for your hard fate. You relieve yourself in blasphemy as you did to-night in play, wildly, desperately, as they say some men drink; don't deny it. I was there all the evening, hidden in the crowd, while you were playing. Pardon me. You had been so nervous all day. You had worried me. And I did not want to leave you five minutes alone. And, my Ely, I saw you sitting among those women and those men, playing so unreasonably in the sight of all that crowd whispering your name. I saw you sell the case you used so much. Ah, my Ely, my Ely!"