Books: The Red Lily, v2
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Anatole France >> The Red Lily, v2
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During the Prince's reading, Dechartre, seated on the couch near Countess
Martin, talked of Dante with enthusiasm as the best sculptor among the
poets. He recalled to Therese the painting they had seen together two
days before, on the door of the Servi, a fresco almost obliterated, where
one hardly divined the presence of the poet wearing a laurel wreath,
Florence, and the seven circles. This was enough to exalt the artist.
But she had distinguished nothing, she had not been moved. And then she
confessed that Dante did not attract her. Dechartre, accustomed to her
sharing all his ideas of art and poetry, felt astonishment and some
discontent. He said, aloud:
"There are many grand and strong things which you do not feel."
Miss Bell, lifting her head, asked what were these things that "darling"
did not feel; and when she learned that it was the genius of Dante, she
exclaimed, in mock anger:
"Oh, do you not honor the father, the master worthy of all praise, the
god? I do not love you any more, darling. I detest you."
And, as a reproach to Choulette and to the Countess Martin, she recalled
the piety of that citizen of Florence who took from the altar the candles
that had been lighted in honor of Christ, and placed them before the bust
of Dante.
The Prince resumed his interrupted reading. Dechartre persisted in
trying to make Therese admire what she did not know. Certainly he would
have easily sacrificed Dante and all the poets of the universe for her.
But near him, tranquil, and an object of desire, she irritated him,
almost without his realizing it, by the charm of her laughing beauty.
He persisted in imposing on her his ideas, his artistic passions, even
his fantasy, and his capriciousness. He insisted in a low tone, in
phrases concise and quarrelsome. She said:
"Oh, how violent you are!"
Then he bent to her ear, and in an ardent voice, which he tried to
soften:
"You must take me with my own soul!"
Therese felt a shiver of fear mingled with joy.
CHAPTER XIV
THE AVOWAL
She next day she said to herself that she would reply to Robert. It was
raining. She listened languidly to the drops falling on the terrace.
Vivian Bell, careful and refined, had placed on the table artistic
stationery, sheets imitating the vellum of missals, others of pale violet
powdered with silver dust; celluloid pens, white and light, which one had
to manage like brushes; an iris ink which, on a page, spread a mist of
azure and gold. Therese did not like such delicacy. It seemed to her
not appropriate for letters which she wished to make simple and modest.
When she saw that the name of "friend," given to Robert on the first
line, placed on the silvery paper, tinted itself like mother-of-pearl,
a half smile came to her lips. The first phrases were hard to write.
She hurried the rest, said a great deal of Vivian Bell and of Prince
Albertinelli, a little of Choulette, and that she had seen Dechartre at
Florence. She praised some pictures of the museums, but without
discrimination, and only to fill the pages. She knew that Robert had no
appreciation of painting; that he admired nothing except a little
cuirassier by Detaille, bought at Goupil's.
She saw again in her mind this cuirassier, which he had shown to her one
day, with pride, in his bedroom, near the mirror, under family portraits.
All this, at a distance, seemed to her petty and tiresome. She finished
her letter with words of friendship, the sweetness of which was not
feigned. Truly, she had never felt more peaceful and gentle toward her
lover. In four pages she had said little and explained less. She
announced only that she should stay a month in Florence, the air of which
did her good. Then she wrote to her father, to her husband, and to
Princess Seniavine. She went down the stairway with the letters in her
hand. In the hall she threw three of them on the silver tray destined to
receive papers for the post-office. Mistrusting Madame Marmet, she
slipped into her pocket the letter to Le Menil, counting on chance to
throw it into a post-box.
Almost at the same time Dechartre came to accompany the three friends in
a walk through the city. As he was waiting he saw the letters on the
tray.
Without believing that characters could be divined through penmanship,
he was susceptible to the form of letters as to elegance of drawing.
The writing of Therese charmed him, and he liked its openness, the bold
and simple turn of its lines. He looked at the addresses without reading
them, with an artist's admiration.
They visited, that morning, Santa Maria Novella, where the Countess
Martin had already gone with Madame Marmet. But Miss Bell had reproached
them for not observing the beautiful Ginevra of Benci on a fresco of the
choir. "You must visit that figure of the morning in a morning light,"
said Vivian. While the poetess and Therese were talking together,
Dechartre listened patiently to Madame Marmet's conversation, filled with
anecdotes, wherein academicians dined with elegant women, and shared the
anxiety of that lady, much preoccupied for several days by the necessity
to buy a tulle veil. She could find none to her taste in the shops of
Florence.
As they came out of the church they passed the cobbler's shop. The good
man was mending rustic shoes. Madame Martin asked the old man whether he
was well, whether he had enough work for a living, whether he was happy.
To all these questions he replied with the charming affirmative of Italy,
the musical si, which sounded melodious even in his toothless mouth. She
made him tell his sparrow's story. The poor bird had once dipped its leg
in burning wax.
"I have made for my little companion a wooden leg out of a match, and he
hops upon my shoulder as formerly," said the cobbler.
"It is this good old man," said Miss Bell, "who teaches wisdom to
Monsieur Choulette. There was at Athens a cobbler named Simon, who wrote
books on philosophy, and who was the friend of Socrates. I have always
thought that Monsieur Choulette resembled Socrates."
Therese asked the cobbler to tell his name and his history. His name was
Serafino Stoppini, and he was a native of Stia. He was old. He had had
much trouble in his life.
He lifted his spectacles to his forehead, uncovering blue eyes, very
soft, and almost extinguished under their red lids.
"I have had a wife and children; I have none now. I have known things
which I know no more."
Miss Bell and Madame Marmet went to look for a veil.
"He has nothing in the world," thought Therese, "but his tools, a handful
of nails, the tub wherein he dips his leather, and a pot of basilick, yet
he is happy."
She said to him:
"This plant is fragrant, and it will soon be in bloom."
He replied:
"If the poor little plant comes into bloom it will die."
Therese, when she left him, placed a coin on the table.
Dechartre was near her. Gravely, almost severely, he said to her:
"You know . . . "
She looked at him and waited.
He finished his phrase:
" . . . that I love you?"
She continued to fix on him, silently, the gaze of her clear eyes, the
lids of which were trembling. Then she made a motion with her head that
meant Yes. And, without his trying to stop her, she rejoined Miss Bell
and Madame Marmet, who were waiting for her at the corner.
CHAPTER XV
THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER
Therese, after quitting Dechartre, took breakfast with her friend and
Madame Marmet at the house of an old Florentine lady whom Victor Emmanuel
had loved when he was Duke of Savoy. For thirty years she had not once
gone out of her palace on the Arno, where, she painted, and wearing a
wig, she played the guitar in her spacious white salon. She received the
best society of Florence, and Miss Bell often called on her. At table
this recluse, eighty-seven years of age, questioned the Countess Martin
on the fashionable world of Paris, whose movement was familiar to her
through the journals. Solitary, she retained respect and a sort of
devotion for the world of pleasure.
As they came out of the palazzo, in order to avoid the wind which was
blowing on the river, Miss Bell led her friends into the old streets with
black stone houses and a view of the distant horizon, where, in the pure
air, stands a hill with three slender trees. They walked; and Vivian
showed to her friend, on facades where red rags were hanging, some marble
masterpiece--a Virgin, a lily, a St. Catherine. They walked through
these alleys of the antique city to the church of Or San Michele, where
it had been agreed that Dechartre should meet them. Therese was thinking
of him now with deepest interest. Madame Marmet was thinking of buying a
veil; she hoped to find one on the Corso. This affair recalled to her
M. Lagrange, who, at his regular lecture one day, took from his pocket a
veil with gold dots and wiped his forehead with it, thinking it was his
handkerchief. The audience was astonished, and whispered to one another.
It was a veil that had been confided to him the day before by his niece,
Mademoiselle Jeanne Michot, whom he had accompanied to the theatre,
and Madame Marmet explained how, finding it in the pocket of his
overcoat, he had taken it to return it to his niece.
At Lagrange's name, Therese recalled the flaming comet announced by the
savant, and said to herself, with mocking sadness, that it was time for
that comet to put an end to the world and take her out of her trouble.
But above the walls of the old church she saw the sky, which, cleared of
clouds by the wind from the sea, shone pale blue and cold. Miss Bell
showed to her one of the bronze statues which, in their chiselled niches,
ornament the facade of the church.
"See, darling, how young and proud is Saint George. Saint George was
formerly the cavalier about whom young girls dreamed."
But "darling" said that he looked precise, tiresome, and stubborn. At
this moment she recalled suddenly the letter that was still in her
pocket.
"Ah! here comes Monsieur Dechartre," said the good Madame Marmet.
He had looked for them in the church, before the tabernacle. He should
have recalled the irresistible attraction which Donatello's St. George
held for Miss Bell. He too admired that famous figure. But he retained
a particular friendship for St. Mark, rustic and frank, whom they could
see in his niche at the left.
When Therese approached the statue which he was pointing out to her, she
saw a post-box against the wall of the narrow street opposite the saint.
Dechartre, placed at the most convenient point of view, talked of his St.
Mark with abundant friendship.
"It is to him I make my first visit when I come to Florence. I failed to
do this only once. He will forgive me; he is an excellent man. He is
not appreciated by the crowd, and does not attract attention. I take
pleasure in his society, however. He is vivid. I understand that
Donatello, after giving a soul to him, exclaimed: 'Mark, why do you not
speak?'"
Madame Marmet, tired of admiring St. Mark, and feeling on her face the
burning wind, dragged Miss Bell toward Calzaioli Street in search of a
veil.
Therese and Dechartre remained.
"I like him," continued the sculptor; "I like Saint Mark because I feel
in him, much more than in the Saint George, the hand and mind of
Donatello, who was a good workman. I like him even more to-day, because
he recalls to me, in his venerable and touching candor, the old cobbler
to whom you were speaking so kindly this morning."
"Ah," she said, "I have forgotten his name. When we talk with Monsieur
Choulette we call him Quentin Matsys, because he resembles the old men of
that painter."
As they were turning the corner of the church to see the facade, she
found herself before the post-box, which was so dusty and rusty that it
seemed as if the postman never came near it. She put her letter in it
under the ingenuous gaze of St. Mark.
Dechartre saw her, and felt as if a heavy blow had been struck at his
heart. He tried to speak, to smile; but the gloved hand which had
dropped the letter remained before his eyes. He recalled having seen in
the morning Therese's letters on the hall tray. Why had she not put that
one with the others? The reason was not hard to guess. He remained
immovable, dreamy, and gazed without seeing. He tried to be reassured;
perhaps it was an insignificant letter which she was trying to hide from
the tiresome curiosity of Madame Marmet.
"Monsieur Dechartre, it is time to rejoin our friends at the
dressmaker's."
Perhaps it was a letter to Madame Schmoll, who was not a friend of Madame
Marmet, but immediately he realized that this idea was foolish.
All was clear. She had a lover. She was writing to him. Perhaps she
was saying to him: "I saw Dechartre to-day; the poor fellow is deeply in
love with me." But whether she wrote that or something else, she had a
lover. He had not thought of that. To know that she belonged to another
made him suffer profoundly. And that hand, that little hand dropping the
letter, remained in his eyes and made them burn.
She did not know why he had become suddenly dumb and sombre. When she
saw him throw an anxious glance back at the post-box, she guessed the
reason. She thought it odd that he should be jealous without having the
right to be jealous; but this did not displease her.
When they reached the Corso, they saw Miss Bell and Madame Marmet coming
out of the dressmaker's shop.
Dechartre said to Therese, in an imperious and supplicating voice:
"I must speak to you. I must see you alone tomorrow; meet me at six
o'clock at the Lungarno Acciaoli."
She made no reply.
CHAPTER XVI
"TO-MORROW?"
When, in her Carmelite mantle, she came to the Lungarno Acciaoli, at
about half-past six, Dechartre greeted her with a humble look that moved
her. The setting sun made the Arno purple. They remained silent for a
moment. While they were walking past the monotonous line of palaces to
the old bridge, she was the first to speak.
"You see, I have come. I thought I ought to come. I do not think I am
altogether innocent of what has happened. I know: I have done what was
my fate in order that you should be to me what you are now. My attitude
has put thoughts into your head which you would not have had otherwise."
He looked as if he did not understand. She continued:
"I was selfish, I was imprudent. You were agreeable to me; I liked your
wit; I could not get along without you. I have done what I could to
attract you, to retain you. I was a coquette--not coldly, nor
perfidiously, but a coquette."
He shook his head, denying that he ever had seen a sign of this.
"Yes, I was a coquette. Yet it was not my habit. But I was a coquette
with you. I do not say that you have tried to take advantage of it, as
you had the right to do, nor that you are vain about it. I have not
remarked vanity in you. It may be possible that you had not noticed.
Superior men sometimes lack cleverness. But I know very well that I was
not as I should have been, and I beg your pardon. That is the reason why
I came. Let us be good friends, since there is yet time."
He repeated, with sombre softness, that he loved her. The first hours of
that love had been easy and delightful. He had only desired to see her,
and to see her again. But soon she had troubled him. The evil had come
suddenly and violently one day on the terrace of Fiesole. And now he had
not the courage to suffer and say nothing. He had not come with a fixed
design. If he spoke of his passion he spoke by force and in spite of
himself; in the strong necessity of talking of her to herself, since she
was for him the only being in the world. His life was no longer in
himself, it was in her. She should know it, then, that he was in love
with her, not with vague tenderness, but with cruel ardor. Alas! his
imagination was exact and precise. He saw her continually, and she
tortured him.
And then it seemed to him that they might have joys which should make
life worth living. Their existence might be a work of art, beautiful and
hidden. They would think, comprehend, and feel together. It would be a
marvellous world of emotions and ideas.
"We could make of life a delightful garden."
She feigned to think that the dream was innocent.
"You know very well that I am susceptible to the charm of your mind.
It has become a necessity to see you and hear you. I have allowed this
to be only too plain to you. Count upon my friendship and do not torment
yourself." She extended her hand to him. He did not take it, but
replied, brusquely:
"I do not desire your friendship. I will not have it. I must have you
entirely or never see you again. You know that very well. Why do you
extend your hand to me with derisive phrases? Whether you wished it or
not, you have made me desperately in love with you. You have become my
evil, my suffering, my torture, and you ask me to be an agreeable friend.
Now you are coquettish and cruel. If you can not love me, let me go;
I will go, I do not know where, to forget and hate you. For I have
against you a latent feeling of hatred and anger. Oh, I love you, I love
you!"
She believed what he was saying, feared that he might go, and feared the
sadness of living without him. She replied:
"I found you in my path. I do not wish to lose you. No, I do not wish
to lose you."
Timid yet violent, he stammered; the words were stifled in his throat.
Twilight descended from the far-off mountains, and the last reflections
of the sun became pallid in the east. She said:
"If you knew my life, if you had seen how empty it was before I knew you,
you would know what you are to me, and would not think of abandoning me."
But, with the tranquil tone of her voice and with the rustle of her
skirts on the pavement, she irritated him.
He told her how he suffered. He knew now the divine malady of love.
"The grace of your thoughts, your magnificent courage, your superb pride,
I inhale them like a perfume. It seems to me when you speak that your
mind is floating on your lips. Your mind is for me only the odor of your
beauty. I have retained the instincts of a primitive man; you have
reawakened them. I feel that I love you with savage simplicity."
She looked at him softly and said nothing. They saw the lights of
evening, and heard lugubrious songs coming toward them. And then, like
spectres chased by the wind, appeared the black penitents. The crucifix
was before them. They were Brothers of Mercy, holding torches, singing
psalms on the way to the cemetery. In accordance with the Italian
custom, the cortege marched quickly. The crosses, the coffin, the
banners, seemed to leap on the deserted quay. Jacques and Therese stood
against the wall in order that the funeral train might pass.
The black avalanche had disappeared. There were women weeping behind the
coffin carried by the black phantoms, who wore heavy shoes.
Therese sighed:
"What will be the use of having tormented ourselves in this world?"
He looked as if he had not heard, and said:
"Before I knew you I was not unhappy. I liked life. I was retained in
it by dreams. I liked forms, and the mind in forms, the appearances that
caress and flatter. I had the joy of seeing and of dreaming. I enjoyed
everything and depended upon nothing. My desires, abundant and light,
I gratified without fatigue. I was interested in everything and wished
for nothing. One suffers only through the will. Without knowing it,
I was happy. Oh, it was not much, it was only enough to live. Now I
have no joy in life. My pleasures, the interest that I took in the
images of life and of art, the vivid amusement of creating with my hands
the figures of my dreams--you have made me lose everything and have not
left me even regret. I do not want my liberty and tranquillity again.
It seems to me that before I knew you I did not live; and now that I feel
that I am living, I can not live either far from you or near you. I am
more wretched than the beggars we saw on the road to Ema. They had air
to breathe, and I can breathe only you, whom I have not. Yet I am glad
to have known you. That alone counts in my existence. A moment ago I
thought I hated you. I was wrong; I adore you, and I bless you for the
harm you have done me. I love all that comes to me from you."
They were nearing the black trees at the entrance to San Niccola bridge.
On the other side of the river the vague fields displayed their sadness,
intensified by night. Seeing that he was calm and full of a soft
languor, she thought that his love, all imagination, had fled in words,
and that his desires had become only a reverie. She had not expected so
prompt a resignation. It almost disappointed her to escape the danger
she had feared.
She extended her hand to him, more boldly this time than before.
"Then, let us be friends. It is late. Let us return. Take me to my
carriage. I shall be what I have been to you, an excellent friend. You
have not displeased me."
But he led her to the fields, in the growing solitude of the shore.
"No, I will not let you go without having told you what I wish to say.
But I know no longer how to speak; I can not find the words. I love you.
I wish to know that you are mine. I swear to you that I will not live
another night in the horror of doubting it."
He pressed her in his arms; and seeking the light of her eyes through the
obscurity of her veil, said "You must love me. I desire you to love me,
and it is your fault, for you have desired it too. Say that you are
mine. Say it."
Having gently disengaged herself, she replied, faintly and slowly "I can
not! I can not! You see I am acting frankly with you. I said to you a
moment ago that you had not displeased me. But I can not do as you
wish."
And recalling to her thought the absent one who was waiting for her, she
repeated: "I can not!" Bending over her he anxiously questioned her eyes,
the double stars that trembled and veiled themselves. "Why? You love me,
I feel it, I see it. You love me. Why will you do me this wrong?"
He drew her to him, wishing to lay his soul, with his lips, on her veiled
lips. She escaped him swiftly, saying: "I can not. Do not ask more.
I can not be yours."
His lips trembled, his face was convulsed. He exclaimed "You have a
lover, and you love him. Why do you mock me?"
"I swear to you I have no desire to mock you, and that if I loved any one
in the world it would be you." But he was not listening to her.
"Leave me, leave me!" And he ran toward the dark fields. The Arno formed
lagoons, upon which the moon, half veiled, shone fitfully. He walked
through the water and the mud, with a step rapid, blind, like that of one
intoxicated. She took fright and shouted. She called him. But he did
not turn his head and made no answer. He fled with alarming
recklessness. She ran after him. Her feet were hurt by the stones, and
her skirt was heavy with water, but soon she overtook him.
"What were you about to do?"
He looked at her, and saw her fright in her eyes. "Do not be afraid," he
said. "I did not see where I was going. I assure you I did not intend
to kill myself. I am desperate, but I am calm. I was only trying to
escape from you. I beg your pardon. But I could not see you any longer.
Leave me, I pray you. Farewell!"
She replied, agitated and trembling: "Come! We shall do what we can."
He remained sombre and made no reply. She repeated "Come!"
She took his arm. The living warmth of her hand animated him. He said:
"Do you wish it?"
"I can not leave you."
"You promise?"
"I must."
And, in her anxiety and anguish, she almost smiled, in thinking that he
had succeeded so quickly by his folly.
"To-morrow?" said he, inquiringly.
She replied quickly, with a defensive instinct:
"Oh, no; not to-morrow!"
"You do not love me; you regret that you have promised."
"No, I do not regret, but--
He implored, he supplicated her. She looked at him for a moment, turned
her head, hesitated, and said, in a low tone:
"Saturday."
CHAPTER XVII
MISS BELL ASKS A QUESTION
After dinner, Miss Bell was sketching in the drawing-room. She was
tracing, on canvas, profiles of bearded Etruscans for a cushion which
Madame Marmet was to embroider. Prince Albertinelli was selecting the
wool with an almost feminine knowledge of shades. It was late when
Choulette, having, as was his habit, played briscola with the cook at
the caterer's, appeared, as joyful as if he possessed the mind of a god.
He took a seat on a sofa, beside Madame Martin, and looked at her
tenderly. Voluptuousness shone in his green eyes. He enveloped her,
while talking to her, with poetic and picturesque phrases. It was like
the sketch of a lovesong that he was improvising for her. In oddly
involved sentences, he told her of the charm that she exhaled.
"He, too!" said she to herself.
She amused herself by teasing him. She asked whether he had not found in
Florence, in the low quarters, one of the kind of women whom he liked to
visit. His preferences were known. He could deny it as much as he
wished: no one was ignorant of the door where he had found the cordon of
his Third Order. His friends had met him on the boulevard. His taste
for unfortunate women was evident in his most beautiful poems.
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