The garden was reached from the flat by a little terrace and two or
three steps.
"You are too early to see it in its winter glory," said Ottilie.
"You're much too early. Nature here sleeps all through the summer under
the scorching sun."
"That's one long, long love-sleep," said Lot, with his arm in his
sister's.
"Yes, one long love-sleep," Ottilie echoed. "At the beginning of the
autumn, the heavy rains come. They may overcome us yet, suddenly. When
they are past, then nature buds for the winter. That is so exquisite
here. When, everywhere up in the north, there's not a leaf or flower
to be seen, the ground here is dug up, grass is sown and the mimosa
blossoms and the carnations and you get your violets. You're too early,
but you can see one phase of the change. Look at my last summer roses,
blooming in such mad, jolly disorder. And the heliotrope, delicious,
eh? Yes, this one is still glorious. Look at my pears: did you ever see
such big ones? How many are there? Three, four, five ... six. We'll
pluck them; they're quite ripe: if they fall to the ground, the ants
eat them in a moment.... Aldo! Aldo! Come here for a second.... Pluck
a few pears, will you? I can't reach them, no more can Lot ... Elly,
have you seen my grapes? Just look at my trellis-work of vines? It
might be a pergola, mightn't it? And they're those raspberry-grapes,
you know; you must taste them. Try this bunch: they're delicious....
We'll eat the pears presently, at lunch. They're like sweet, aromatic
snow.... Here are figs for you: this is an old tree, but it still
stands as a symbol of fruitfulness. Pick them for yourself, take as
many as you like.... Here are my peaches.... How hot the sun is still!
And everything's steaming: I love all that natural perfume. Those
grapes sometimes drive me mad...."
She thrust a white arm out of the sleeve of her white gown among the
hazy-blue bunches and picked and picked, more and more. It was a feast
of gluttony, an orgy of grapes. Aldo picked the finest for Elly. Well
past forty, in the tranquil calmness of his graceful strength he was
plainly a man of warm passion, a southern man of passion, a tranquil,
smiling and yet passionate nature. As he drew himself up lissomely, in
his loose-fitting grey-flannel suit, and stretched his hands towards
the highest bunches, the harmonious lines of his statuesquely handsome
figure appeared sinewy and supple; and there was this contradiction in
him, that he suggested a piece of classic sculpture in the costume
of to-day. The smiling serenity of his regular, large-boned face also
reminded Lot of busts which he had seen in Italy: the _Hermes_ of the
Vatican--no, Aldo was not so intelligent as that--the _Antinous_ of
the Capitol, but a manlier brother; the _Wrestlers_ of the Braccio
Nuovo, only not so young and more powerfully built.... Aldo's smile
answered to Ottilie's smile and contained the tranquillity of a secure
happiness, of an intense moment of perfect human bliss. That moment
was there, even if it were passing. That secure happiness was as the
pressed bunch of grapes....
Lot felt that he was living his own ecstatic moment, felt that he
was happy in Elly, but yet he experienced a certain jealousy because
of the physical happiness in that very good-looking couple: there
was something so primitive in it, something almost classical in this
southern autumnal nature, among this superabundance of bursting fruits;
and he knew for certain that he would never approach such happiness,
physically, because he felt the north in his soul, however eagerly
his soul might try to escape that north; because he felt the dread of
the years that were to come; because his love for Elly was so very
much one of sympathy and temperament; because his nature was lacking
in vigorous sensuality. And it made him feel the want of something;
and because of that want he was jealous, with all the jealousy which
he had inherited from his mother.... They too, Aldo and Ottilie,
felt no morbid melancholy, no sickly dread; and yet their happiness,
however superabundant, had the sere tint of autumn, like all the
nature around them. The glowing-copper leaves of the plane-trees blew
suddenly over the vine-trellis, scattered by the rough, brusque hands
of the gaily-gathering wind. A shudder passed through the disordered
rose-bushes; a heavy-ripe pear fell to the ground. It was autumn; and
neither Aldo nor Ottilie was young, really young. And yet they had
found this; and who could tell what they had found before, each on
a different path! Oh, that untrammelled happiness, that moment!...
Oh, how Lot felt his jealousy!... Oh, how he longed to be like Aldo,
so tall, so vigorous, handsome as a classical statue, so natural, a
classical soul!... To feel his blood rush madly through his veins!...
Oh, that north, which froze something inside him; that powerlessness
to seize the moment with a virile hand; and the dread, the dread of
what was to come: that horror of old age, while after all he was still
young!... He now looked at his wife; and suddenly his soul became
quite peaceful. He loved her. Silent inward melancholy, dread: those
were his portion; they couldn't be helped; they must be accepted with
resignation. The headiness of rapture could overwhelm him for a moment:
it was not the true sphere of his happiness. It would intoxicate him:
his blood was not rich enough for it. He loved, in so far as he was
able; he was happy, in so far as he could be. It was that, after all:
he had found what he wanted, he wished to be grateful. A tenderness for
Elly flowed through him so intensely: he felt that his soul was the
sister-soul to hers. Superabundance was not for him; and the pressure
of the things that passed had always weighed upon him and always
hindered him from flinging his two arms riotously round life....
He threw away the stalk of his bunch of grapes and followed Aldo, who
was calling to him, indoors. The Italian took his arm with a movement
of sympathy:
"Ottilie's going to sing," he said. "Your wife has asked her to."
His French had the sensual softness of his too southern accent.
Ottilie was already singing, to her own accompaniment, in the
drawing-room. Her rich voice, schooled to the spaciousness of large
halls, swelled to a pure stream of sound, made the air quiver even in
the garden with notes heavy with happiness. It was an Italian song, by
a composer whom Lot did not know; and it provided an illusion as though
Ottilie were improvising the song at the moment. There was a single
phrase, which opened softly, rippled with laughter and melted away
swooning, like a nymph in a faun's arms.
"Another time, perhaps I'll sing you something serious," said Ottilie.
"This is only a single cry: a cry of life, nothing more...."
They sat down to lunch. The sun, which had scorched them, the wind,
which had covered them with rough kisses, had given them an appetite;
and the saffron _bouillabaisse_ stimulated their palates lustily.
On the side-board the fruit lay heaped in large, plain baskets and
represented autumn's lavish abundance indoors as well.
"Lot," said Elly, suddenly, "I don't know what it is, but I suddenly
feel the south."
"We poor northerners!" said Lot. "Ottilie and Aldo: _they_ feel the
south."
"But so do I!" said Elly.
"Nice is a novitiate for you, Elly, before you get to Italy!" said
Ottilie. "Do you actually feel the south here? In the air?"
"Yes, in the air ... and in myself, in _myself_...."
"Well, we have tropical blood in us," said Ottilie. "Why shouldn't we
feel the south at once? Aldo could never feel the north: he went to
Stockholm with me when I was singing there."
"Didn't you feel the north, in the air?" asked Lot.
"_Sicuro!_" said Aldo. "I found it cold and bleak, but then it was
winter. I felt no more in it than that. You northerners feel things
more sensitively. We feel perhaps ... more brutally and fully. We have
redder blood. You have the gift of feeling _nuances_. We haven't. When
I feel, I feel entirely. When Ottilie feels a thing now, she also
feels it like that. But she was not always so."
"Aldo is making a southerner of me!" said Ottilie. "He is wiping out
all my _nuances!_"
Outside, the mistral rose and raged in a whirl of glowing-copper
plane-leaves.
"That's autumn," said Ottilie.
"Turning into winter," said Lot.
"But winter here is life again, renewed. Life is renewed daily. Every
day that comes is new life."
"So no dying, but everlasting resurrection?" asked Lot, with a smile.
"No dying, everlasting resurrection!"
Her voice rang out defiantly. Oh, to embrace the moment ... with
virile strength! It was not for him, thought Lot. But what there was
was tender happiness. If only it remained so! If only he were not
left behind, lonely, alone and old, now that he had known tender
happiness!... He looked at his wife. The topaz-coloured wine sent a
sparkle to her eyes and a flush over her usual pallor; she was joking
with Aldo and Ottilie, was gayer than Lot had ever seen her; she became
almost pretty and began boldly to talk Italian to Aldo, spinning out
whole sentences which he corrected with his quiet laugh.
"Who knows," thought Lot, "what she may yet feel? She is twenty-three.
She is very fond of me; and, before she came to love me, she had known
sorrow, because of another love. Who can tell what the years may bring?
Oh, but this is a divine moment, these days are perhaps forming the
most heavenly moment of my life! Let me never forget them.... I am
happy, so far as I can be happy. And Elly must be feeling happy too....
She is breathing again.... It is as though an oppression had gone over
her and as though she were breathing again. She lived too long with the
old man. The past is an oppression in his house. It is an oppression
at Grandmamma's. It is an oppression even with us, at home, because of
Mamma.... Life does not renew itself there. It dies away, it passes;
and the melancholy of it depresses even us, the young people.... Oh,
Elly will not be really happy until she is in Italy!... This is only
an intoxication, delicious, but too full and brutal for our senses;
and there ... there, when we are working together, we shall find glad
happiness: I know it! Glad happiness in a country not so sensual as
Nice, but more intelligent and dusted exquisitely with the bloom of the
dead past.... Yes, we shall be in harmony there and happy and we shall
work together...."
Aldo was opening the champagne; and Lot whispered:
"Elly!"
"What?"
"You felt the south just now?"
"Yes ... oh, Lot, beyond a doubt!"
"Well, I ... _I_ feel happiness!"
She squeezed his hand; a smile played around her lips. She also would
never forget this moment of her life, whatever else those future years
might bring: with her northern soul of sadness, she felt the south and
her happiness ... and what passed they did not see....