In Great Waters: Four Stories

by Thomas A. Janvier

For Jan, things went hardly in those days. Having her promise, he had rights in her—as we say in Provence. But he did not get many of his rights. Half the time when he claimed her for walks on the hill-sides among the olive-orchards, she would not go with him—because she had her work to do at home, she said. And there was I, where her work was, at home! For a while Jan did not see beyond the end of his nose about it. I do not think that ever it crossed his mind to think of me in the matter—not, that is, until some one with better eyes than his eyes helped him to see. For he knew that I was his friend, and I suppose that he remembered what I had told him about my life being his. And even when his eyes were helped, he would not at first fully believe what he must plainly have seen. But he soon believed enough to make him change his manner toward me, and to make him watch sharp for something that would give him the right to speak words to me which would bring matters to a fair settlement by blows. And I was ready, as I have said—though I would not fairly own it to myself—to come to blows with him. For I wanted him dead, and out of my way.

And so my mother's words, which had made me at last see clearly, stayed by me as I went sailing in my boat softly seaward down the étang. And they struck deeper into me because Jan's boat was just ahead of mine; and the sight of him, and the thought of how he had saved my life only to cross it, made me long to run him down and drown him, and so be quit of him for good and all. I made up my mind then that, whether I killed him or left him living, it would be I who should have Magali and not he.

IV

"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!"

My mother said that again to me when I came home that night from my fishing; and she said it to me often as the days went on. She saw the change that had come to me, and she knew what was in my soul. It is not wonderful, when you stop to think about it, that a man's mother should know what is in his soul: for the body in which that soul is, the living home of it, is a part of her own. And she grew sad and weary-looking when she found that her words had no hold on me, and there came into her eyes the sorrowful look that comes into the eyes of old people who are soon to die.

But Magali's eyes were the only eyes that I cared for then, and they seemed to me to grow brighter and brighter every day. When she and I walked in the olive-orchards together in the starlight the glow of them outshone the star-glow. It seemed to light up my heart.

I do not think that we talked much in those walks. I do not seem to remember our talking. But we understood each other, and we were agreed about what we were to do. I was old enough to marry as I pleased, but Magali was not—she could not marry without my mother's word. We meant to force that word. Some day we would go off in my boat together—over to Les Saintes Maries, perhaps; or perhaps to Marseille. It did not matter where we went. When we came back again, at the end of two or three days, my mother no longer could deny us—she would have to give in. And no one would think the worse of Magali: for that is our common way of settling a tangled love-matter here in Provence.

But I did not take account of Jan in my plans, and that was where I made a mistake. Jan had just as strong a will as I had, and every bit of his will was set upon keeping Magali for himself. I wanted her to break with him entirely, but that she would not do. She was a true Provençale—and I never yet knew one of our women who would rest satisfied with one lover when she could have two. If she can get more than two, that is better still. While I hung back from her, Magali was more than ready to come to me; but when she found me eager after her, and knew that she had a grip on me, she danced away.

And so, before long, Jan again had his walks with her in the olive-orchards by starlight just as I did, and likely enough her eyes glowed for him just as they did for me. When they were off that way together I would get into a wild-beast rage over it. Sometimes I would follow them, fingering my knife. I suppose that he felt like that when the turn was mine. Anyhow, the love-making chances which she gave him—even though in my heart I still was sure of her—kept me always watching him; and I could see that he always was watching me. Very likely he felt sure of her too, and that was his reason—just as it was my reason—for not bringing our matter to a fighting end. I was ready enough to kill him, God knows. Unless his eyes lied when he looked at me, he was ready to kill me.