She had laid down the Imitation upon the seat by her side, and now she took it up. The sight of its familiar pages made her think for the first time, “Do I love God any more?” And immediately afterwards came the thought: “Have I ever loved him?” The knowledge of her love for Androvsky, for this body that she had seen, for this soul that she had seen through the body like a flame through glass, made her believe just then that if she had ever thought—and certainly she had thought—that she loved a being whom she had never seen, never even imaginatively projected, she had deceived herself. The act of faith was not impossible, but the act of love for the object on which that faith was concentrated now seemed to her impossible. For her body, that remained passive, was full of a riot, a fury of life. The flesh that had slept was awakened and knew itself. And she could no longer feel that she could love that which her flesh could not touch, that which could not touch her flesh. And she said to herself, without terror, even without regret, “I do not love, I never have loved, God.”
She looked into the book:
“Unspeakable, indeed, is the sweetness of thy contemplation, which thou bestowest on them that love thee.”
The sweetness of thy contemplation! She remembered Androvsky’s face looking at her out of the heart of the sun as they met for the first time in the blue country. In that moment she put him consciously in the place of God, and there was nothing within her to say, “You are committing mortal sin.”
She looked into the book once more and her eyes fell upon the words which she had read on her first morning in Beni-Mora:
“Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is not tired; when straitened it is not constrained; when frightened it is not disturbed; but like a vivid flame and a burning torch it mounteth upwards and securely passeth through all. Whosoever loveth knoweth the cry of this voice.”
She had always loved these words and thought them the most beautiful in the book, but now they came to her with the newness of the first spring morning that ever dawned upon the world. The depth of them was laid bare to her, and, with that depth, the depth of her own heart. The paralysis of anguish passed from her. She no longer looked to Nature as one dumbly seeking help. For they led her to herself, and made her look into herself and her own love and know it. “When frightened it is not disturbed—it securely passeth through all.” That was absolutely true—true as her love. She looked down into her love, and she saw there the face of God, but thought she saw the face of human love only. And it was so beautiful and so strong that even the tears upon it gave her courage, and she said to herself: “Nothing matters, nothing can matter so long as I have this love within me. He is going away, but I am not sad, for I am going with him—my love, all that I am—that is going with him, will always be with him.”
Just then it seemed to her that if she had seen Androvsky lying dead before her on the sand she could not have felt unhappy. Nothing could do harm to a great love. It was the one permanent, eternally vital thing, clad in an armour of fire that no weapon could pierce, free of all terror from outside things because it held its safety within its own heart, everlastingly enough, perfectly, flawlessly complete for and in itself. For that moment fear left her, restlessness left her. Anyone looking in upon her from the garden would have looked in upon a great, calm happiness.
Presently there came a step upon the sand of the garden walks. A man, going slowly, with a sort of passionate reluctance, as if something immensely strong was trying to hold him back, but was conquered with difficulty by something still stronger that drove him on, came out of the fierce sunshine into the shadow of the garden, and began to search its silent recesses. It was Androvsky. He looked bowed and old and guilty. The two lines near his mouth were deep. His lips were working. His thin cheeks had fallen in like the cheeks of a man devoured by a wasting illness, and the strong tinge of sunburn on them seemed to be but an imperfect mark to a pallor that, fully visible, would have been more terrible than that of a corpse. In his eyes there was a fixed expression of ferocious grief that seemed mingled with ferocious anger, as if he were suffering from some dreadful misery, and cursed himself because he suffered, as a man may curse himself for doing a thing that he chooses to do but need not do. Such an expression may sometimes be seen in the eyes of those who are resisting a great temptation.
He began to search the garden, furtively but minutely. Sometimes he hesitated. Sometimes he stood still. Then he turned back and went a little way towards the wide sweep of sand that was bathed in sunlight where the villa stood. Then with more determination, and walking faster, he again made his way through the shadows that slept beneath the densely-growing trees. As he passed between them he several times stretched out trembling hands, broke off branches and threw them on the sand, treading on them heavily and crushing them down below the surface. Once he spoke to himself in a low voice that shook as if with difficulty dominating sobs that were rising in his throat.