One Sunday, as he got out of bed, the Prince felt like singing. Perhaps
he was unconsciously following the example of some birds, which,
deceived by the Spring-like warmth of a midwinter's day, had been
warbling in the eaves of Villa Sirena since sunrise.
He looked out of his bedroom window. The Mediterranean, without a single
sail, stretched away in far-off undulations, to where it met the sky.
The gulls were wheeling in circles, continually drooping into the water,
folding their wings, and letting themselves be carried along by the
waves. The sandy depths, stirred by the swells, gave the blue sea a
lighter shade, which attained, along the shore, an opalescent hue, like
that of absinthe. Around the promontory, white luminous foam was
constantly being churned among the projecting rocks of the reefs.
The Prince heard voices above him. Castro and Spadoni were talking from
window to window. The mysterious call of the early morning beauty had
caused them to jump out of bed. They were admiring the sky, which did
not have a trace of mist to dim the brightness of its farthest reaches.
The mountains stood out in extraordinary relief: they seemed larger and
nearer. Above Cap-Martin, the Italian Alps descended to the sea, their
outlying buttress, at the water's edge, white with the frontier towns:
Vintimiglia and Bordighera.
Through some freak of the atmosphere, a dense, elongated cloud, like a
snow-covered island, was floating directly overhead in the clear sky.
Its whiteness seemed to radiate an inner light.
"I recognize it," Atilio said with a tone of conviction to the musician,
who did not seem to tire of looking at it. "I have seen it often. When
the day turns out too bright, the Directors of the Casino are afraid
that the patrons may be bored by so much sunlight, and the vast expanse
of azure: blue sea and blue sky. 'Have the big cloud brought out,' they
order over the telephone. You must have noticed that that cloud always
appears from behind the mountains. That's where the Casino has its
storehouses. They don't neglect details here when it comes to
entertaining their patrons."
Michael heard two exclamations: one of surprise and the other of
indignation. Next he heard the sound of a window suddenly closed. The
pianist, not in a mood for joking at so early an hour, was going back to
bed, to sleep until lunch time.
The Prince hurried through his toilet. He felt the need of getting out
and going somewhere, as though his gardens seemed too small for him. In
the distance the bells of Monte Carlo were ringing, and still farther
off those of Monaco were replying; and the merry pealing of the chimes
caused the clear brittle air to vibrate like a crystal glass.
He went down stairs slowly, trying not to make any noise, and when he
reached the gate he breathed freely. He had not met any of his
companions, not even the Colonel. As though attracted by the Sunday
morning atmosphere of gaiety which, as the afternoon wears on, changes
to tiresome ennui, he decided to walk to the city alone.
Outside the gate, a girl was waiting for the street car. She was very
young; but her feet slanted at a sharp angle on her high-heeled shoes.
Her skirt, falling scarcely below her knees, showed her well-rounded
calves. The finely woven stockings revealed the whiteness of her flesh.
Prominent against the salmon colored silk sweater, was a necklace of
large imitation amber beads. Her hair, cut short just below the ears,
fell smoothly from underneath a jaunty velvet tam o'shanter of graceful
line. The air of profound respect with which she spoke to him made him
recognize her. It was the gardener's daughter. But at the same time she
looked at him in a sly way with ill-concealed curiosity, as though her
eyes made a distinction between the master and the man whom women adored
and of whom she had heard so many things.
The Prince went on, after speaking to her as he would have to a young
lady of his own social rank. He was gay that morning, and he laughed
inwardly as he thought how later on that little bundle of mischief and
ambition would keep men busy. Then he thought of Don Marcos, and what
Atilio had told him. Poor Colonel! Imagine a person, at his age, trying
to tame a young wildcat!
He walked lightly, with a springy step, in the direction of Monte Carlo.
He passed the villas and the gardens as though contact with the ground
had given his step fresh vigor, and as though the Spring-like air had
abrogated to some extent the laws of gravity.
When he reached the city he stopped in front of the steps of San Carlos
Church. Through the door he could see the twinkling tapers, smell the
odor of flowers, and hear the droning of the organ, and the voices of
young girls singing. He felt like a boy once more, buoyant and fresh as
the morning, and had an impulse to follow the various families, in their
Sunday best, who were ascending the steps. He was a Catholic through his
father, a member of the Greek church through his mother, and nothing by
his own inclination. Suddenly he felt a certain repugnance for the
cave-like darkness, laden with perfumes, and dotted with lights. So he
went on, breathing the open air with delight.
"Oh, your Ladyship! Good morning!"
A long, thin female hand shook his with masculine vigor. The brass
buttons of her khaki colored uniform, like that of an English soldier,
were gleaming in the sun. The uniform, instead of being completed by
breeches, ended in a short skirt and tan leather leggings.
It was Lewis's niece. She had spent two afternoons at Villa Sirena
rambling about the gardens. Once more Michael observed her unhealthy
emaciation, which was beginning to take on the miserable appearance of
consumption. Her Sam Brown belt buried itself in her blouse, as though
failing to meet the resistance of a body underneath the cloth. The face
under the visor of the military cap was as sharp as a knife. Her skin,
drawn and lined in spite of her youth, showed all the bones and hollows.
It was impossible to judge her age: she might have been twenty-five, or
she might have been sixty. Only the eyes had retained their freshness;
eyes that still kept the guilelessness of adolescence, and looked one
squarely in the face with the serene confidence of a virgin sure of her
strength.
She had gone through the horrors of war, as through a flame that dries
up and parches everything it touches, and in the end converts it to
dust. She was like a mummy, burned by the fire of the blazing towns that
she had seen, and shaken by the tears and moans of thousands of human
beings. "Think what those ears have heard!" Michael said to himself. And
he understood the sad expression of the pale mouth which hung wearily
between two drooping furrows. "And think what those eyes have seen!" he
continued mentally. But the eyes did not care to remember and smiled at
him, happy in the present moment.
She had just come out of a large hotel converted into a hospital, and
was waiting for the street car to go to Menton. More wounded soldiers
had arrived there, and owing to the scarcity of nurses the doctors had
been obliged to accept her services. For the present they would not
bother her any more with solicitude about her health! As she thought of
the hard work that lay before her, of the long night watches, and the
fight with death to save so many lives, she was filled with joy. She was
anxious, as though she were going to a celebration to take the short
trip as soon as possible, and seeing the car coming, she shook hands
with the Prince again, with a firm grip.
"I shall go on abusing your permission. Next time I shall pillage your
gardens even worse. Flowers ... lots of flowers! If you would only see
the joy they give the poor fellows when you put them beside the beds!
Some of the doctors are vexed; they think it is silly. But all I say is:
as long as we have to die, why not die with a little poetry, with
something around us to remind us of the beauty we are losing. It doesn't
hurt any one."
Lubimoff went on his way, but his heart was less light. This woman,
fighting death so generously and so manfully, seemed to have torn away
the rosy veil that had made his eyes rejoice.
Everything was the same, but of a darker hue, as though he were looking
at the landscape through smoked glasses. He noticed things which he had
not observed until then. The large hotels had been converted into
hospitals. Their porches and large balconies were filled with men
basking in the sun; men whose heads were white balls, bound with
bandages that left only the eyes and mouth visible; half finished men,
as it were, lacking a leg or an arm, like a sculptor's rough models.
Others were lying motionless, with both legs amputated, like corpses in
a dissecting room, but still breathing.
On the sidewalks he met soldiers of various nations: French, English,
Serbian, officers, and a few Russians, who reminded him of the former
importance his country had had in the war. Every variety of uniform worn
by the various armies of the French Republic passed before his eyes: the
horizon blue of the home troops, the mustard color of the soldiers from
Morocco, the yellow fatigue caps of the Foreign Legion, and the red fez
of the Algerians and the negro Sharpshooters.
Each one was maimed. This sunny land, with its lovely views of sea and
sky, seemed peopled with a race that had survived a cataclysm. Elegantly
dressed officers, with handsome figures, limped along, cautiously
dragging one leg, or else stepping gingerly on a foot so swathed in
bandages that it was several times its natural size. Some of them were
leaning on canes, bent over like old men. Men of athletic proportions
trembled as they walked, as though their skeletons were rattling about
in the hollow wrapper of their bodies wasted by consumption. Fingers
were missing on hands; arms had been cut off until the shapeless stumps
looked like fins. Under their pads of cotton, cheeks retained the gashes
made by hand grenades, scars like those left by cancer; the horrible
cavity of the nose, which had been torn away in some of the men, was
hidden by a black tampon attached to the ears. The faces of others were
covered by masks of bandages, leaving nothing visible save the eyes--sad
eyes that seemed to look with fear to the day when they would have to
grow accustomed to the horror of a face that a few months before had
been youthful and now was like a vision in a nightmare. The bodies of
some were intact, retaining their former strength and agility in all
their limbs. Seen from behind they had kept all the vigor and
suppleness of youth. But they walked abreast, holding tightly to one
another's arms, their eyes lost in darkness, tapping the pavement with a
stick which had taken the place of the vanished sword, and which would
accompany them until the hour of their death.
And this procession of sadness and resignation, this grievous masquerade
comforted by the joyousness of the morning, and feeling love of life
once more renewed, was coming from the gardens. Others were going in the
direction of the Casino and its terraces, passing among the Brazilian
palm trees, with smooth, hollow trunks covered with elephant hide; among
the cacti, held up by iron supports like a tangle of green reptiles
bristling with thorns; among the prickly pears as high as trees; among
the Himalayan fig trees, with towering trunks and wide spreading domes
of branches which seemed to have been made to shelter the motionless
meditation of the fakirs; among all the trees that come from tropical
and temperate America, from China, Australia, Abyssinia, and South
Africa. A tiny rivulet descended the slope in zig-zags through the
openings in the green lawn, forming back waters among the bamboos and
Japanese palms, until it flowed into a miniature lake, bordered with
foliage, as tranquil, pleasing, and dainty as one of those centerpieces
in which the water is represented by a mirror.
Michael stopped in the upper gardens to look at the Casino from a
distance. He had never realized before the fussiness and bad taste of
the architecture of this building, which was the heart of Monaco. If the
"gingerbread monument"--as Castro called it--closed its doors, all Monte
Carlo would be wrapped in a deathly stillness like the loneliness of
those cities which in former centuries were ports, and now are sleepy
and deserted, far from the sea, which has withdrawn. It was the work of
the architect of the Paris Opera House, an ornate, gaudy, childish
structure, of the color of soft butter, with multi-colored roofs,
balconied turrets, niches with nameless statues, many tile friezes and
gilded mosaics. At the corners there were green porcelain escutcheons,
imitating roughly cut emeralds. The outstanding decorative motif of this
building, famous throughout the world, was the imitation of gold and
precious stones.
Owing to the prosperity of the establishment, they had added to the main
body flanked with four towers, an extensive wing in which the best
gaming rooms were located. Various green and yellow cupolas of different
sizes revealed the existence of the latter, rising above the upper
balustrade. On this balustrade a number of bronze angels or genii,
entirely nude and with golden wings, had been set up. With black
extended arms they were offering golden tributes, the significance of
which no one had been able to guess. Other white or metal statues of
half nude women were sheltered in the niches in the walls, and the names
and significance of these were likewise a mystery.
Although the edifice was erected with the pretense of dazzling and
charming with its gold and soft colors, those who went there paid
scarcely any attention to its splendors.
"The ones who are arriving," Castro would say, "go in on the run; they
want to get placed at the gaming tables as soon as possible. The ones
who are coming out take a gloomy view of everything; and even though the
Casino were as beautiful as the Parthenon, they would take it for a
robber's cave."
The Prince looked to the right of the building, where a strip of blue
sea was visible, with the hairy trunks and rounded tops of a few
Japanese palms standing out against the blue. There at the entrance to
the terraces along the Mediterranean rose the only two monuments of the
city, dedicated to the fame of two musicians from the simple fact that
some of their works had been played for the first time in the theater of
the Casino. Carved in marble, Berlioz and Massenet greeted with a vague
stare in their sightless eyes the cosmopolitan crowd that came to the
gambling house. "They are honorary _croupiers_," Castro used to say.
"Massenet--that isn't so bad," thought Michael. "He was fortunate, he
had money, and his gifts were recognized during his lifetime. But
imagine Berlioz, who spent his years struggling against poverty and
public indifference, standing guard after death over the Casino's
millions!"
Next, he looked at the foreground, observing the open Square in front of
the edifice. There was a round garden in the center. People called it
the "cheese" and some even particularized and called it the "Camembert."
Around the garden rail and on the benches backing up to it, one could
observe the living soul of Monte Carlo. Here people gathered, to
exchange jokes and gossip, ask news from those who were coming out of
the Casino, and comment on the good or bad fortune of the most
celebrated gamblers.
In the immediate neighborhood, there were no business houses except
jewelry stores, branches of the government pawn shop, and millinery
shops. Women who played small stakes felt like satisfying their longing
for an expensive hat on coming out of the Casino. Those who needed fresh
capital to carry out their systems had only to take a few steps to pawn
their valuables. In the show windows of the jewelry shops, pearl
necklaces worth a million francs and emeralds worth three hundred
thousand, were exhibited during the winter, waiting for a buyer; and in
summer they were sent to the fashionable bathing resorts to continue
being a mute and dazzling temptation. The jewelers, with Semitic
profiles, were waiting behind their counters, more for sellers than
buyers, and calmly offered a fourth of the price for a gem bought in
that very shop the year before.
From a distance it was easy for the Prince to guess the character of the
many people who at that early hour were sitting on the benches opposite
the stairs leading up to the edifice. Here those condemned to misery by
gambling, and accursed by fate, remained all day, suffering the most
atrocious torment of living close to the door of the sanctuary without
being able to enter. They had lost their last cent, and the directors of
the establishment, who generously send ruined gamblers back to their
respective countries, had handed over the _viaticum_ to them for their
return. But they had staked the money given to aid them and had lost;
and since they were debtors to the Casino they could not reenter it
until they had fulfilled their obligations. So there they remained,
stranded in the Square for all time, with the false hope of getting some
money. None of them had any idea of how or from what source. They
mingled together there in the companionship of misery, watching for
fellow-countrymen who were better off, to besiege them with requests for
a loan; or else they spent their time discussing numbers and colors.
Perhaps they would succeed in getting together a few francs after
turning all their pockets inside out, and they might choose, as the
emissary of their illusions, a comrade who was as poor as they, but who
had not "_taken the viaticum_" and was free to enter.
Michael saw a crowd of people extending as far as the Japanese palm
trees, near the Massenet monument. They had just arrived by various
street cars from Nice. They were all hurrying, anxious to enter the
motley edifice as soon as possible, as though fortune were expecting
them in the gaming rooms and might leave at any moment, tired of
waiting.
He looked at the clock above the facade. It was ten o'clock. The daily
occupations were being resumed and the devotees who lived in Monte Carlo
were likewise flocking there, and mingling with the people who had come
from other places. They all mounted the marble steps, following the
three stair-carpets held in place by brass rods that glistened in the
sun.
"And to think that we're at war!" Michael thought. "And many of those
who have gotten up early to make the trip, and those who live here, too,
have sons or brothers or husbands, who at the present moment are
fighting, and dying perhaps!"
Love of life, love of pleasure, and the vain hope of winning, worked
like an anaesthetic, causing them all to rise above their worries and
forget, so that they were able to live entirely in the present moment.
This general rush for the opening of the gaming hall disgusted the
Prince and caused him to halt in his descent of the gentle slope of the
gardens. It was repugnant to him to mix with the crowd that was
loitering in the neighborhood of the Casino.
His desire to retrace his steps gave him an idea. "Supposing you go and
surprise Alicia at her home? She would be so pleased!"
She had been at Villa Sirena twice since her first visit. A chance
meeting in the street with the Prince, when she was walking along with
her friend Clorinda, had served as a pretext for another visit to the
refuge in their beautiful gardens of "the enemies of women." He found
the "General" less hostile and dominating than he had imagined; but he
could not understand Castro's passion for her. In spite of her beauty it
seemed to him that he was talking to a man. They had been accompanied by
Valeria, a young French girl, who had been a protegee of Alicia's, a
traveling companion in the days of dazzling wealth, and who now
accompanied her in poverty, out of gratitude and fidelity. Later the
Duchess de Delille had returned alone a second time to consult him about
various projects for her future, all of them lacking in common sense;
and she had finally accepted a loan of a thousand francs. Luck was
against her in gambling: she needed new "tools to work with." The
capital that had irritated her so by never varying, never going much
above thirty thousand, had finally heard her complaints, and dwindled
with lightning rapidity, leaving merely a few remnants of its former
self.
In spite of the Prince's loan the Duchess had complained.
"I'm always the one who is looking you up: you never deign to visit my
house. How poor I really am!"
Remembering her humble protest, the Prince no longer hesitated. Turning
his back on the Casino, he began to ascend the sloping streets in the
direction of the frontier line separating Monte Carlo from Beausoleil;
streets that displayed names recalling Spring: the Street of the Roses,
of the Carnations, of the Violets, of the Orchids.
He entered a short avenue formed by a double row of garden fences. He
caught a glimpse of the houses between the columns of palm trees, and
the firm leaves of the large magnolias. As he went along he read the
names of the small estates carved on little plaques of red marble,
placed at the entrance to the grounds. "Villa Rosa", here it was. He
pushed open the iron gate, which was ajar, without hearing the sound of
a voice or the barking of a dog to greet his presence. He saw a small
garden half deserted, overgrown with weeds at the foot of the untrimmed
trees, and covering the space that had formerly been occupied by flower
beds. The rest was more carefully tended, but it was a vegetable garden
with rectangles of kitchen stuffs intensively cultivated.
Lubimoff approached without meeting anyone. It occurred to him that the
gardener must have been the man with the dog, whom he had met as he
turned into the street.
Then he mounted the four steps at the entrance. Here too the door was
half ajar, and upon pushing it all the way open, he found himself in a
hallway with stairs leading to the upper story.
There was no one in sight. He tried the doors of the adjoining rooms and
found them locked. There was not a sound. It was as though the house
were deserted. But the silence was suddenly broken by a voice floating
down the stairway. It was a faint voice, singing a slow, sad English
air. The song was accompanied by a sound of dull blows, as though hands
were beating and shaping up some large unresisting object.
Michael thought he recognized Alicia's voice. He coughed several times
without result; he was not heard. He was about to call to let her know
that he was there, but refrained, through a sudden impulse to play a
little joke on her. Why shouldn't he surprise her by going up-stairs the
one part of the house where she was now living, he thought? His
hesitation vanished. Up-stairs he would go!
From the first landing he saw several doors, but only one was open; and
it was from that one that the sounds of the song and the thumping were
coming. A woman bending over a bed, was holding out her arms and
vigorously shaking up a pillow. Instinctively she felt that some one was
standing behind her, and turning around she gave an exclamation of
surprise on seeing Michael in the doorway. The latter was no less
surprised to recognize the woman as Alicia; an Alicia dressed in an
elegant but old negligee, with crumpled gloves on her hands, and a veil
wrapped around her hair.
"You! It's you!" she exclaimed. "How you frightened me!"
Immediately she recovered her composure, and smiled at the Prince, as
the latter tried to excuse himself. He had not met any one; the gate and
the door had been open. She, in turn, now excused herself. It was
Sunday; Valeria, her companion, had gone to Nice to take lunch with a
family she knew; her maid and the gardener's wife were at mass; the old
man had gone out a moment before to see some friends.
After these mutual explanations they both remained silent, looking at
each other hesitatingly, not knowing what to say, but still smiling.
"You making your bed!" he remarked, just to say something.
"So you see. This is rather different from my bedroom in Paris. It is
hardly the 'study' that I took you to either. Times have changed!"
Michael gravely nodded assent. Yes, times had changed.
"At any rate," she continued, "you must confess that there is a certain
novelty in seeing the Duchess de Delille, madcap Alicia, making her
bed."
The Prince nodded again. Indeed it was a novelty: something one could
not see every day.
Alicia persisted in her explanations. It had not been at all hard for
her to do housework. She cleaned her room herself, in order to save her
elderly maid the extra bother. She did not want Valeria to help her.
They were each keeping their own rooms in order, now that help was
scarce. Besides, she herself sometimes went into the kitchen, and she
would have liked to help the gardener cultivate the little garden, just
for her own pleasure.
"We are living in war times; things are getting dearer every day, and as
for me, I'm poor. We ought to return to the simple primitive life. But I
don't dare work in the garden, on account of the neighbors. They watch
you all the time from their windows. There is a Brazilian gentleman,
even, who seems to have fallen in love with me."
She herself was proud of her industriousness. Who would ever have
guessed such qualities some years before in the mistress of the
luxurious residence on the Avenue du Bois, who was in the habit of
getting up at three o'clock in the afternoon?
"I owe it all to mamma. She had me educated in a girls' school in
England, when it was the fashion to substitute domestic work for the
physical exercise of sports. I think it's called 'Corinthianism.' And I
feel better than ever. In the old days I had to get up several mornings
a week with Valeria and Clorinda and go to a tennis club and play until
I was exhausted. Now, after taking care of my room and helping with the
others I don't need any exercise. I'm doing poor man's gymnastics."
There was a long silence. Michael looked at the room; a woman's bedroom,
still in disarray, with clothes lying on the arm chairs, giving out the
perfume of a fastidious femininity. Through a narrow door he saw a
corner of the adjoining bath room, where a wet spot had been left on the
mosaic floor, from the morning bath. An odor of eau de cologne and tooth
paste hung in the air. From several toilet jars, in disorder, vague
scents of more precious essences were escaping. Mingling with the toilet
articles and objects of intimate apparel, he could distinguish cards
such as are given out to the patrons of the Casino, to mark their plays;
some with red or blue marks in the columns, others pricked with a hat
pin, for lack of a pencil. He observed larger cards, with a roulette
wheel indicating the numbers and colors; and also many books of the sort
sold by the stationers and at newspaper stands; illuminating treatises
on "How to win without fail in all kinds of play." On the mantelpiece,
half hidden by various fashion magazines, was a small roulette wheel, a
real one, used undoubtedly in studying out and trying various theories.
On the lamp stand beside the bed the latest copy of the Monte Carlo
Review was lying open, with statistics of all the winning numbers during
the past week at the various tables; interesting reading, with
mysterious annotations which had kept Alicia up perhaps till dawn.
In the meantime she was dexterously causing to disappear everything
which she considered prejudicial to her appearance since the surprise.
When Michael looked at her again the old gloves had vanished from her
hands and the veil was hidden somewhere. Her hair, now left free, was
black and lustrous, a trifle coarse, perhaps, but it rose luxuriantly in
large ringlets in disarray.
They prolonged the silence with an embarrassed smile, as though neither
of them could find a way of relieving the situation.
"Go on with your work," Michael said, somewhat timidly. "Now I'm here, I
don't want to be in the way."
As though seeing a challenge to her embarrassment in these words, and
anxious at the same time to show her skillfulness, she bent over the bed
to continue her work. Michael regained his high spirits at this display
of confidence. It wasn't chivalrous to allow her to work alone: he must
help her.
"You! You!" exclaimed Alicia, laughing, as though such a proposition
seemed to her unthinkable.
The Prince pretended to feel hurt. Yes: he! Wasn't he a sailor, and
hadn't his adventurous life compelled him to know how to do a little of
everything? More than once in his explorations in the wilds, he had had
to make a bed as best he could, wrapped in blankets beside the embers of
a fire.
He had gone over to the other side of the bed, and was imitating all the
movements of the Duchess with comic exaggeration. He petted the pillows
after her, with such violence as to make the bed resound. While she
lifted it slightly toward her to shake it better, he lifted it
completely with his strong hands.
"You don't know how! You don't know how!" Alicia exclaimed with childish
glee.
Then, seeing his fingers seize the linen with a powerful grip, she
added:
"Good heavens, let go of that: You'll tear the pillow, and just now, in
these hard times!"
They both laughed, finding this work very amusing.
"Take hold!" she said in authoritative tones, and flung in his face a
sheet that she was holding at the opposite side.
Michael found himself wrapped in a cloud of filmy linen fragrant with
feminine perfumes. It was for an instant only, but to him it seemed like
something extraordinary, of limitless duration, extending beyond the
bounds of time and space. He had a presentiment that this insignificant
event was going to be a turning point in his life. He felt his former
self suddenly awaken with fresh vigor. Perhaps it was the stimulation
due to continence. He thought of Castro's ironic smile, and of himself,
living like a hermit there in Villa Sirena, and preaching hostility to
women! There was a buzzing in his ears; his eyes, momentarily blinded,
seemed to be gazing on a vast expanse of rosy sky, the pale, luscious
rose color of a woman's flesh. There was something intoxicating in the
sudden breath that caused his brain to reel, communicating the sensation
to his whole organism, as violently as though struck with a lash. When
the sheet had fallen back on the bed, Michael was deathly pale, with a
look of intenseness gleaming in his eyes. She thought he was angry at
the jest, and she laughed mischievously, leaning on the pillow with her
hands. As she shook with laughter, the lace of her low-necked negligee
trembled seductively on her breast and shoulders.
Suddenly the Prince found himself on the other side of the bed close to
Alicia. Finally they both sat down on the edge of the bed, turning their
backs on the forgotten sheet. He took one of her hands without realizing
what he was doing. Then he bent so close to her face that one of her
Medusa-like tresses brushed against his temple. He felt no desire to
talk, but seeing her eyes, so close to his, he broke the pleasant
silence.
"You have been weeping!"
The woman protested with a strained smile and grew pale as she stammered
her excuses. No; perhaps it was the dust shaken up by the cleaning, or
the effort of working. But he went on studying her eyes which were
indeed slightly reddened.
"You were crying when I came in," he continued, with insistent and
troubled curiosity.
Now Alicia's protest took the form of a harsh, shrill laugh, that was
decidedly forced and unnatural. And by one of those modulations of which
only great actors know the secret, the burst of her laughter died
gradually into a sigh, then a groan, until, letting go the Prince's
hand, she covered her eyes, and hung her head, while a fit of sobbing
shook her whole body.
She was crying. It was enough that Michael should have discovered her
recent weeping to cause the tears to rise in her eyes again, renewing
her former anguish. She gave in to her grief with a sort of cruel
delight, finding it preferable to the torture of feigning, which his
unexpected visit had imposed.
The Prince remained silent for a few moments.
"Is it for that young fellow of yours?" he plucked up courage to ask,
with a shaking voice as though he too were undergoing an unexplainable
emotion.
She replied with a slight movement of her head, without taking her hands
from her eyes. It was unnecessary for Michael to see them. He had
guessed the truth on discovering the traces of tears. It could be only
for him that she was weeping: the lack of news; the worry of thinking
that he was a prisoner, far off, suffering all sorts of privations; and
that perhaps she would never see him again.
"How you love him!"
The Prince was surprised himself at the tone of voice in which he said
these words. There was a note of despair, envy, and sadness at the
thought of the passing years, bequeathing to the coming generation the
haughty privileges of youth.
The guests at Villa Sirena would also have been astonished to hear him
talk in this fashion. Alicia's surprise caused her to forget all
precaution as a pretty woman, and lift her head, as she took away her
hands. Her face was red, her eyes tremulous and overflowing. A tear hung
from a lock of hair. She realized that she must be looking terrible, but
what did she care?
"Yes, I love him; I love him more than anything in the world. It is on
his account that I go on living. If it weren't for him I would kill
myself. But he isn't what you think. No, he isn't."
With her face so reddened with weeping, it was impossible to detect a
blush; but her gestures, the expression of her face and the tone of her
voice, rebelled with shame and indignation against the suspicion of the
Prince.
She went on talking in a low voice, without daring to look at him,
hurrying her words like a penitent anxious to get through with a
difficult confession as soon as possible. On various occasions in
talking with the Prince, the truth had come to her lips, and at the last
moment the reticence of a woman still desirous of pleasing through her
beauty had caused her to conceal the facts. But to whom could she reveal
her secret better than to Michael? She considered him one of the family:
he had received her in friendly fashion in her hour of need, when so
many men had turned their backs on her. Besides, between a man and a
woman, love is not the only feeling that can exist, as she had thought
in the days of her mad youth. There were other less violent things, more
placid and lasting: friendship, comradeship, and brotherly affection.
She paused for a moment, as though to gather strength.
"He is my son."
Michael, who was expecting some extraordinary, some monstrous
revelation, worthy of her mad past, was unable to restrain an
exclamation of astonishment:
"Your son!"
She nodded: "Yes, my son." With lowered eyes, she went on talking in the
same nervous tone, as though she were making a confession. She went back
over her past. How surprised she had been, how angry, at the cruel trick
love had played in cutting off the best years of her life! Her
indignation was like that of the citizens of Ancient Greece who began a
riot when they learned of the pregnancy of a courtezan who was
considered a national glory, a beauty whom the multitude came from afar
to see, when she showed herself nude in the religious festivals. They
were bent on killing her unborn child, as though it had been guilty of
a sacrilege. Alicia, too, used to consider herself a living work of art,
and wanted to punish the sacrilege of her child with death. What
criminal attempts she had made to rid herself of the shame that was
throbbing in her vitals! Besides, what tortures she had undergone in her
efforts to hide it, to go on leading her life of pleasure as before, and
suffer anything rather than permit her secret to escape! Returning from
parties where she had seen herself admired as formerly yet always with
the dread that her secret had been discovered, she would fall into fits
of homicidal rage and rebelliously curse the being that persisted in
living within her; and in paroxysms of wild hysteria she would devise
ways and means of encompassing its destruction.
There were tears in her voice as she recalled these scenes.
"But how about your husband?" Michael asked.
"We separated at that time. He could tolerate my love affairs in
silence: he could pretend not to know about them ... but a child that
wasn't his own...!"
She recalled the attitude of the Duke de Delille. He had shown a dignity
worthy of him. There had been many deceived husbands in his family: it
had almost become a tradition of nobility, an historic distinction. He
did not feel dishonored by selling his name in getting married in order
to increase the pleasures and comforts of his life. His name that
belonged to him was a tool to work with. But it was impossible for him
to let that name get out of his family, to give it to an intruder to
continue the line. His forefathers had had many illegitimate children;
but it had never occurred to any of his gay women ancestors to introduce
into the family descendants in whose creation their husbands could
assume no responsibility whatever.
The Duke had separated from her, granting all her demands save that
one. It was an adulterous son and it must disappear. And no one, except
they two and the maid--who was still with her--were to know of the
birth.
"There were times when I was quite happy," Alicia continued. "I learned
to know new unsuspected joys. I would suddenly leave Paris: lots of
people thought I was traveling with some new lover. No; I was going to
see my little boy, my George; first in London, later in New York, but
always in a large city. I could live with him, and play at being a
mother, with a living doll that kept getting bigger and bigger ...
bigger! Do you remember the night I invited you to dinner? I had just
come back from one of those trips, and in spite of that, just think of
the foolish things I said. I imagined myself Venus, or Helen, passing
before the old men on the wall. And in order to give myself up
completely to a paroxysm of maternal pride I was thinking of my
heroines, who were also my rivals. Helen had had children, and men went
on killing one another for her. Venus had not escaped maternity, and
gods and mortals continued to adore her in spite of the fact that she
had a son fluttering about the world. Maternity meant neither abdication
of rights nor loss of prestige; she could go on being beautiful and
being desired, like other women, after an incident that had seemed to
her irremediable. So I went on living my life. Oh, when I think of how I
sometimes shortened the time that I had intended to stay with him, in
order to follow some man that scarcely interested me! Now that I haven't
him, I think of the hours that I might have lived by his side, and that
were given up to the first male that aroused my curiosity! It's my most
terrible remorse; it gnaws at my conscience all night long, and drives
me to gambling as the only remedy. I am certainly to be pitied,
Michael."
But a fixed idea seemed to dominate Michael as he listened to her.
"And the father? Who is the father?"
The tone of his voice was practically the same as before: a tone of
hostile curiosity, of aggressive spite.
Another wave of astonishment swept over him when he saw that she was
shrugging her shoulders.
"I don't know; it doesn't make any difference to me. Other women, in
like circumstances, fasten the paternity on the man they are most
interested in. As though you could tell! I haven't picked out any one in
particular from among my memories. They are all the same. I have
forgotten them all. My son is mine, mine only."
She had the majestic indifference of the serene and fertile forest that
opens its blossoms to the pollen scattered through the air like a golden
rain of love. The new plant springs up. It belongs to the forest, and
the forest keeps it, without showing any interest in learning the name
and origin of the wandering source of life borne hither willy-nilly on
the wind.
There was a long silence.
"One day, on arriving in New York," she continued, "I made a terrible
discovery. I found my George almost as tall as I was, and strong
looking, with the serious air of a grown man, though he wasn't quite
eleven. I'm ashamed to think it; but I mustn't lie: I hated him. Venus
might have a son, as long as the son remained eternally a little child
through all the centuries, like one of those amusing babies that are
dressed in a whimsical fashion, and are the mother's pride and
amusement. But my own son, with his powerful body, his strong hands, and
solemn face! It meant that I should grow old before my time; I should
have to renounce my youth if I kept him by my side! I could never resign
myself to declaring that I was his mother. And I fled from him, letting
a number of years go by, without paying attention to anything in regard
to him, excepting to send the means for his complete education. Oh, when
I think how fate has punished me for my selfishness!"
She remained silent for a few moments to dry the fresh tears that were
reddening her eyes and giving her voice a husky resonance.
"He came to Paris when I was least expecting him. The venerable friend
who was looking after his education there in America, had died. I found
a man, a grown man, in spite of the fact that he wasn't over sixteen. My
first feeling was one of annoyance, almost anger. I should have to say
farewell to youth, and change my mode of life on account of this
intruder. But there was something in me that kept me from doing anything
so heartless as to send him back to a foreign country, or off to a
boarding school in Paris. I grew accustomed to him at once. I had to
have him in my house. It seemed as though, when I was near him, I felt a
certain serenity, a deep quiet joy that I never thought myself capable
of feeling. You don't know what it means, Michael. You could never
understand, no matter how much I tried to explain it to you. I swear it
was the happiest time in my life. There is no love like that. Besides,
we were such good comrades! I suddenly felt as though I were a girl of
his age again; no, younger than he. George used to give me advice. He
was so wise for a boy of his age; and I used to do what he said like a
younger sister. He let his mother drag him along and introduce him to a
world of pleasure and luxury that dazzled him, after his sober, athletic
life with a stern educator. And I leaned proudly on his arm, and laughed
at the false ideas people had of our actual relation. How we used to
dance, the year before the war, without any one suspecting the true
nature of the affection that bound me to my partner!"
Alicia paused to linger on these delightful memories. She smiled with a
far-away look in her eyes, as she thought of the malicious error people
had made.
"Every tango-tea in the Champs-Elysees found the Duchess de Delille
dancing with her latest crush! And, Michael, as for me, I was proud that
they should be making such a mistake. I went on being the beautiful
Alicia, restored to youth by the fidelity of an adolescent who
accompanied her everywhere, with all the enthusiasm of a first love.
This seemed to me a much better role than that of the passively resigned
mother. Besides, what fun we used to have laughing and talking it over
afterwards when we were by ourselves! Many of my former lovers felt
their old passion revive again out of a sort of unconscious envy--the
instinctive rivalry that the man of ripe years feels toward youth--and
they began besieging me with their gallantries again. George used to
threaten me in fun: 'Mamma, I'm jealous!' He didn't want any other man
to be showing attentions to his mother, so that she might belong to him
completely. On other occasions I myself had better reasons to protest. I
surprised a greedy look in the eyes of many women of my own class when
they gazed at him--some with a boldly inviting look, since, being
younger, they felt they had a right to take him away from me. And he was
so good! He used to joke with me about these passions that he inspired;
and tell me about others that I had not been able to guess! You don't
know what young people are like nowadays, in the generation that has
followed us. They seem to be made of different flesh and blood. Our
generation was the last to take love seriously; to give tremendous
importance to it, and make it the chief occupation of our lives. Now
they don't understand people like you and me: we seem monstrous to them.
My son is only interested in one woman: his mother; and in addition to
her, automobiles, aeroplanes, and sports. All these strong, innocent
boys seemed to have guessed what was awaiting them...."
As she spoke, the momentary serenity with which she had related this
happy period in her life gradually vanished. She went on talking in a
subdued voice, choked from time to time by sobs.
Suddenly war had come. Who could have imagined it a month before? And
her son was ashamed not to be one of the men who were hurrying to the
railroad stations to join a regiment. One morning he had overwhelmed her
with the announcement of his enlistment as a volunteer. What could she
do? Legally she was not his mother. George bore the name of a pair of
old married servants who had been willing to play that game of deception
by posing as his parents. Besides, he was born in France, and it was not
extraordinary that he, like so many other youths, should have wanted to
defend his country before he was called to arms by law.
The Duchess lived for a few months in a tiny village in the south of
France, near the Aviation Camp where her son was in training. She wanted
to be with him just as long as she possibly could. If only he had become
a soldier at the time when she was living separated from him, and was
concealing her actual relation to him! But she was going to lose him at
the sweetest moment of her life, when she was beginning to think she
might be at George's side forever.
"It did not take him long to become a pilot. How I hated the ease with
which he learned to manage his machine! His progress filled me with
pride and anger. Those young fellows are regular fanatics so far as
aviation is concerned. It is something that has come into existence in
their time, and they have seen it grow before their school-boy eyes. He
went away, and since then I have been more dead than alive. Three years,
Michael, three years of torture! I've paid dearly for all my past life!
Though the mistakes that I made were great, I've made up for them, and
more too. You may well have compassion on me. You can have no idea what
I'm suffering."
The first year that Alicia had spent alone, she had lived in constant
expectation of his letters, which arrived irregularly from the front.
Her joys were few and far between. George had come to Paris only once on
leave, and had spent half a week with her. At long intervals she also
received visits from the aviator's comrades, greeting the news they
brought with tears and smiles. Her son had received the War Cross after
an air battle. His mother had cut out the short newspaper paragraph
referring to this event, sticking it with two pins on the silk with
which her bedroom was hung. She would spend hours staring as though
hypnotized at these brief lines: "_Bachellery, Georges, aviator, gave
chase to two enemy planes beyond our lines and ..._"
This "Bachellery, Georges" was her son! It made no difference to her
that other people were not aware of the fact. Her pride seemed to grow
because of the mystery surrounding it. The handsome strapping fellow,
strong, and innocent as the heroes of ancient legend, had been formed in
her body. All the men whom she had known in her past life seemed more
and more petty and ugly; they were inferior beings, sprung from another
race of humanity, the existence of which should be forgotten.
Suddenly a stupid, unforeseen accident plunged her into the darkness of
despair. One beautiful morning with the joyous confidence of a young
knight setting forth in quest of adventure, the aviator started out in
his pursuit machine, rising through the silvery clouds in search of the
enemy. Suddenly, he noticed some slight motor trouble--due to the
negligence of the mechanics in getting it ready, a matter of slight
importance under ordinary circumstances ... and he was forced to
descend, absolutely unable to continue his flight, and the wind and bad
luck caused him to land within the German lines.
"A hundred yards this side, and he would have landed among his own
men.... What can you expect? I was too happy. I had still to learn what
misery really means! I confess that at the very first I was almost glad,
with the selfish gladness of a mother. A prisoner! It meant that his
life would be safe; he wouldn't be killed in an air battle; he was no
longer in danger of being crushed to pieces or burned to death under his
broken machine. But later on!..."
Later this security, that placed her son outside the limit of actual
war, became a source of torture. She envied herself the times when he
used to go out each day and face death, but still remained free. The
newspapers talked about the suffering of the prisoners, their being
herded together in vast unsanitary sheds, and the hunger from which they
were suffering. The life of ease and comfort which the mother was
leading was a constant source of remorse. When she sat down at table, or
looked at her soft bed, or noticed the warm caress of a fire, and saw
that the window panes were covered with the traceries of frost, she felt
she was usurping in a shameless manner something that belonged to
another person. Her boy, her poor boy, was living like a stray dog,
lying on the straw, with hunger gnawing at his stomach! She had produced
a human being--she, a miserable woman, who for so many years had
believed herself the center of the universe, was enjoying all kinds of
luxuries--and this flesh of her flesh was agonizing under the tortures
of want such as are felt only by the most poverty stricken.... She
never could have dreamed that such an irony of fate would be reserved
for her.
During the first few months she scurried wildly about, with the fierce
irrational love of the female animal that sees her young in danger. She
went from one government bureau to the other, taking advantage of all
her social connections! But there were so many mothers! They were not
going to open diplomatic negotiations for a woman in her position....
Every day she sent large packages of food to the offices that had charge
of prisoners' relief. They finally refused to accept them. The entire
service could not take up all its time doing nothing but send aid to a
mere protege of the Duchess de Delille. There were thousands and
thousands of men in the same situation as he. And she could not cry out:
"He is my son!" A scandalous revelation like that would not help
matters. She kept on sending the packages regularly even if they did not
go to her George. They would be used to satisfy some one's hunger. She
felt the magnanimity roused by great sorrow; she made her offerings like
a mother who, in praying for her child when all hope has been given up,
prays for other sick children also, feeling that through her generosity
her prayers may be heeded.
Besides, the suspense was cruel. When the clerks took her packages, they
smiled sadly. She was practically certain that her shipments of food
were being appropriated by the guards. All the expensive eatables
intended for her son were doubtless used by the old German reservists in
charge of guarding the prisoners, to have a joyous feast, with the
greedy merriment of fierce mastiffs, toasting to the glory of the Kaiser
and the triumph of their race over the entire world! Good God! What
could she do?
At long intervals, after tremendous delays, she would finally get a
postcard passed by the German censor. There would be four lines,
nothing more, written as children write at school, under the eye of the
teacher standing at their backs. But the writing was George's. "In good
health. We're not badly treated. Send me eatables." She would spend long
hours gazing at these timid, deceiving lines. For her they acquired a
new meaning. They told something else: the truth, namely. She recalled
the stories of dying captives who had come from those torture camps, and
the lines seemed to stammer with groans of a sick child: "Mamma ...
hungry. I'm hungry!"
There were times when she thought she would go mad. Everything about her
brought to memory the image of her George, well groomed, and cared for
by her with such fond and exaggerated attention. She had looked after
his clothes, taking an interest in the respective merits of his tailors.
She had had to endure his masculine protests when she had tried to
provide him with underwear of fine silk like her own. In the morning she
used to go and surprise him, as he lay in bed, like a little child, and
kiss her own flesh and blood, metamorphosed into an athlete. Everything
seemed to her too mean and poor for that strong fellow, handsome as a
god of old. She looked after his bed, his dresser, and his person with
all the passionate fondness of a sweetheart. She inspected his pockets
in order continually to renew her gifts of money. Her Mexican mines were
his, and so were the frontier lands, and everything she possessed. And
later on--she hated to think when--she would see him married to some one
after her own heart. Then his obscure birth was to be glorified by the
splendor of enormous wealth. But suddenly the world, losing its balance,
had been plunged into a furious madness, and this Prince of Fate, whose
mother, in conference with the chef, had invented gastronomic surprises
for him alone, was crying from some far off snow-swept plain in the icy
north:
"Mother ... hungry. I'm hungry!"
"I went to Switzerland three times, Michael. I even proposed that in
Paris they should provide me with means of getting into Germany,
offering to go as a spy. But they laughed at me; and they were right!
What was I going to spy out? My son, of course ... what I wanted to do
in Germany was to see my son. In Switzerland I met two crippled soldiers
who had just been exchanged, and came from the camp where George was.
They knew the aviator Bachellery. He had tried to escape five times. He
enjoyed a certain fame among his companions in misery for the
haughtiness with which he faced the cruelest guards. The latest news was
uncertain. They had not seen him lately. They thought that he was then
in another prison camp, a punishment camp, farther inland, near the
Polish frontier, where the refractory and dangerous prisoners were
forced to undergo a cruel disciplinary regime, and suffer terrible
punishments."
Her voice trembled with anger as she said this. She could see her son
dragging a chain, and being whipped like a slave. Oh, if she were only a
man, and could be left alone for a moment with that tragi-comedian with
the upturned mustache who had made many millions of women groan with
sorrow!
"And to think that there have been fanatics who have killed good or
insignificant kings! And not one of them has lifted a hand to do away
with the Kaiser! Don't talk to me about anarchists. They are idiots! I
don't believe in them."
This outburst of wrath vanished immediately. Once more grief and despair
tore a sob from her. She remembered a photograph she had seen in one of
the newspapers: the torture called "the post," applied by the Germans in
their punishment camps; a Frenchman in a tattered uniform, fastened to
a wooden stake, as though it were a cross, on an open snow-covered
plain, suffering for hours and hours from the deadly cold. It was the
death penalty, hypocritically applied, with savage refinements of
torture. It was impossible to distinguish the features of the poor
fellow suffering like Christ, with his head falling on his breast. Even
if it wasn't George, surely he had also suffered the same torture.
"How can I live in such endless anguish! They wouldn't let me go back to
Switzerland. They held up my passports. I don't know what's happened to
him. There are times when it seems as though my head would burst. That's
why I avoid living alone. That's why I gamble, and have to see people,
and talk, and get away from my thoughts. Since then I've only received
one postcard from my son, without any date, and without any indication
as to where he is. It says about the same as the other one. The writing
is his, and nevertheless it seems to be in another hand. Oh, what that
writing says! I see him like the other man, like the poor fellow
fastened to the post covered with rags, as thin as a skeleton.... My
son!"
Michael was obliged to take both her hands in a strong grip, and draw
them towards him, holding her up, to keep her from falling on the bed in
hysterical convulsions. He was sorry that he had come, and, by his
curiosity, invited a confession that aroused the woman's grief.
As for her, she looked at him with wide-open staring eyes, without
seeing him. Finally, concentrating with an effort, she noticed Michael's
emotion. This calmed her somewhat.
"You can be glad you don't know what such torture is like. There's no
end to it: there's no help for it. When I think of him, I feel as though
I were going to die. Not to know about him! Not to be able to do
anything! I ought really to find some diversion and learn to think of
something else. One must live: one can't be always weeping. But whenever
I succeed in getting interested in anything, I immediately feel remorse.
I call myself names: 'You're a bad mother, to forget your sorrows.' A
day seldom passes that I eat without crying. I'm tormented by the
thought that he would be happy with what is left from my table, with
what the servants eat, or perhaps with what they give to the dog! And
when Valeria and Clorinda see my tears, they can't explain such constant
grief. They don't know my secret. They think like every one else, that
it's simply a question of a mere protege or a young lover. They can't
understand such despair over a mere man. That's why I gamble so much.
It's the only thing that really keeps my mind occupied, and makes me
forget for a time; it's my anaesthetic. Before, I used to play just for
the excitement, for the pleasure of struggling with fate; and because I
was flattered by the amazement of the curiosity seekers who watched me
stake enormous sums with indifference. Now it's on his account--and for
no other reason."
Alicia's mind reverted to her financial difficulties. As a matter of
fact, her fortune had been seriously impaired some years earlier, but
she had always had hopes of some sudden recuperation. Besides, the
period before the war had been the happiest time of her life. She had
her son and she lived her life, without any thought of business matters.
Later her financial ruin had come along with the loss of George.
"If only I had the wealth I used to have! I know the power of money. I
could have moved men and even governments. I would have written to the
Kaiser, or to Hindenburg, sending them a million, two million, or any
amount they asked. 'Now that you are reestablishing slavery and
pillaging towns, here is money for you. Give me back my son.' And now I
would have him back at my side. But I'm poor! If you knew how I love
money now, just for his sake! I dream of winning big stakes, five
hundred thousand francs or maybe a million, in two or three days. How
happy I am when I come back from the Casino with a few thousand francs
to the good! 'It's to send my poor boy a box with something good to
eat,' I say to myself. Then I write to the stores, or go there myself,
keeping in mind the things he liked best. You are rich and don't
understand how hard it is to get along now, how scarce things are
getting, and how much they cost! I didn't have any idea of such things
before, either. And I send him boxes of the nicest things; and I feel
proud that in my mind I can say to him: 'It's with the money mamma won
for you ... it's with my work!' Don't smile, Michael. That's what it
is--work! Besides, what else could I work at? The one thing that worries
me is how to address these shipments. 'For the Aviator Bachellery,
prisoner in Germany.' That's all I know, and there are so many
prisoners! Almost all my shipments must be lost; but some at least will
reach him. Don't you think he'll get some of them?"
The Prince greeted this anxious question with a vague gesture of
agreement. "Yes;--perhaps, almost certainly!"
Immediately Alicia showed a certain reassurance. Eight months had gone
by without her hearing anything about him; but other mothers were in the
same situation. There was no use despairing. Men who had been given up
for dead in the early battles of the war were returning home after a
long period of captivity. Besides, did it seem reasonable to believe
that a son of hers was going to die of hunger and want, like a beggar?
Lubimoff again nodded assent. "Really, it didn't seem reasonable!"
"There are moments," she said, "when I feel an unexplainable joy, a
mysterious intuition, that I'm going to receive good news,--the feeling
I have on the days when I go to the Casino sure of winning,--and do win.
I wrote to the King of Spain, who is interested in ascertaining the fate
of prisoners, and who often succeeds in getting them sent back to their
homes. I have had a great number of friends write to him. If he could
only give me back my George! At least I expect to learn good news; to
find out where he is, and convince myself that he is alive. I would be
satisfied if they interned him in Switzerland, the way they do with the
seriously wounded, and I would go and live with him. How happy I would
be if he were in Lausanne or Vevey, beside the lake, like my husband!"
There was a sad, kindly smile on her face as she thought of the Duke.
"Oh, I haven't forgotten him, I assure you. Everything that's left over
from George's boxes, I send to him by way of Geneva. 'For
Lieutenant-Colonel de Delille.' Oh, it reaches _him_, without any
difficulty! Poor fellow! His answers are almost love letters. I send him
sausages and canned things, in memory of the twenty louis bouquets he
used to send me when he was courting me. What are we coming to, Michael!
Who could ever have imagined that everything and everybody would be so
topsy-turvy!"
Already she was talking more calmly, as though the memory of her son was
no longer in the foreground of her thoughts.
"Everything seems to tell me I'm going to get good news. Misfortune
can't last so very much longer. Doesn't it seem that way to you? It's
like bad luck in play: it finally goes away. The main thing is to save
your strength in order to resist it. I ought to feel satisfied. I was so
excited I could hardly sleep last night. I went above the thirty; you
know: the thirty thousand francs that used to be the limit of my luck.
Last night I won eighty thousand. Your friend Lewis was furious. He says
it takes a woman to do a thing like that: to win, playing haphazard,
defying all the rules."
From the look on the Prince's face she guessed his surprise at her
merriment following so closely on her recent tears.