And suddenly she felt a secret bitterness that the man by her side was not stronger, more robust, more dangerous, that he had allowed her to say “no” so often.
Darkness requires more heat than light. The sun, the sight of blood, the inborn cruelty of the south had all at once burnt through her shyness, her fear and her brooding. Hunger for life buried its claws deep in this strange virgin soul that had lain so anxious and so self-absorbed. She was not the first barbarian from a twilight-land to whom the south has given a bold desire to live.
That night Sister Hedvig became her husband’s lover.
They remained the whole autumn in Seville and saw many bull fights. Hedvig was very beautiful at this time. Hers was a dark passionate unfolding. Percy overwhelmed her with costly clothes and jewels. He dressed her up as a Spaniard with combs and shawls and mantillas. He did not touch his paint brush, but he let her pose to his love. And Hedvig enjoyed his admiration, enjoyed her own beauty. For the first time in her life she was at peace with her own body. It was no longer the cause of restlessness and heavy care and danger. It took pride in this man’s caresses. Beneath her silk and her jewels she felt the glow of her nakedness. A solemn thrill would pass through her at the thought of her own shoulders and breast. And she enjoyed the feeling of satisfaction, which was both hot and cold. Oh, what a relief not to feel any longer that anxious longing in her inmost soul.
Hedvig Hill was happily in love with herself. For Percy also these were happy days. Their late union gave his mind a bright coolness. Perhaps he sometimes suspected the gulf which nevertheless existed between them. But that did not frighten a dilettante, it only now and then liberated a certain light self-irony. He enjoyed his own extravagant gifts, he enjoyed seeing her bloom in her own way under his hands. He felt something of the cool intoxication of the artist before his work when it has achieved independent life.
“You are my most beautiful picture,” he would whisper. “I sometimes imagine I have done it myself.”
The time was far away when he had lain in the shadow of Death looking at her with a beggar’s eyes. Percy Hill forgot things easily.
It was the evening of a clear and brilliant October day. The whitewashed walls no longer dazzled. Down in the patio of the small hotel two Spanish matrons in black were sitting talking with phlegmatic fire. Their talk flowed as musically and as monotonously as the little spraying fountain in the marble basin. Hedvig and Percy had just returned from a long drive towards the vega. The coolness of the approaching autumn suited him wonderfully well. He stood leaning against the window frame with his hands behind his head:
“Today I feel quite aggressively alive,” he said. “Fancy if we should have a child, Hedvig. A little girl. I would much rather have a girl than a boy.”
There was a slight touch of annoyance in his voice.