On an irregular square, from which numberless streets and alleys spread
themselves out like rays, rises the Cathedral of St. Gudule. Light and
transparent in architecture, bearing herself proudly--the church towers
above the city where the ghosts of Horn and Egmont walk. Her walls are
blackened as if they wore mourning for the crimes which men have
committed here in God's name; and through her cool aisles sighs the
mouldy breath of a vault. Gesa entered. It was dusky within; thick
shadows covered the feet of the brown, worm-eaten benches. Only a few
people still remained. In vain the violinist looked around for his
bride. A couple of old women he saw: a child in a blue apron,
stretching on tiptoe to reach the holy water, two beggars near the
door--that was all. No priest was at the altar: service was over.
The child had tripped away: the old woman had hobbled off; for the last
time Gesa's eye searched the church, then he went on to the high altar
and kneeled down to say a prayer. In spite of the fantastic pantheism
in which Delileo had brought him up, Gesa had always retained a strong
leaning toward Catholic devotion. Suddenly he heard a sound,--a sigh.
In the deepest shadow, almost at his feet, crouched a dark form. A
tender trouble overcame him.
"Annette!" he whispered--"Annette!"
She rose up out of the shadow. She stared at him, gave a short cry, and
clung shuddering to a pillar.
"Annette! What ails you!" he cried, shocked, almost angry. "Are you
afraid of me?"
She shook her head. Was it the dusk that made her look so ashen pale?
"You come so suddenly, and I am ill;" she said.
"Ill, poor heart! Then truly I must have appeared to you like a ghost.
And I wanted to enjoy your surprise! Foolish egotist that I am! Forgive
me!" Thus he stammered, and forgetting where he was would have drawn
her to him. She motioned him from her. "Not here!" she cried. Looking
around at the sacred walls, with an intense gaze--"Not here!" Leaning
on his arm she passed out of the church door.
The air was moist and sultry, clouds hung low, a swallow fluttered
anxiously across the square. In comparison with the dusky gloom of the
church it was still quite light here. Gesa raised questioning, longing
eyes to the face of his beloved. It was deathly pale, the cheek
thinner, the eyes larger, the lips darker than formerly; little lines
about the mouth and nose, melancholy shadows around the eyes idealized
its heretofore purely material beauty.
"I had quite forgotten how charming thou art," he murmured, in a voice
stifled with passion. She smiled at him, a wild strange smile, in which
she grew still more beautiful, and the shadows around her eyes
deepened.
It suddenly seemed to him that she reminded him of some one, of
something, but he searched his soul in vain. It could not be
of the pale Malmaison roses whose tender heads drooped, on the
pavement,--or,--no,--and yet--yes,--a little,--Annette reminded him of
Guiseppina!
Her hand, which she had left to him passively in the beginning, nestled
now more tenderly on his arm. When they would have turned their steps
toward the Rue Ravestein, she held him back.
"What if we should make a detour," she whispered, "take me to the park,
to all your favorite places, will you?"
"My heart! My treasure!" he murmured, drunk with the rapture of her
presence.
An odor of withering flowers impregnated the air, mixed with the faint
breath of fresh acacia blossoms. They entered the park. It was as if
dead. Through the dark crowns of the trees there passed, from time to
time, something like a shudder of fear.
"And you are really ill, Annette?" he asked.
"Yes," and her voice sounded hollow, like a suppressed cry of anguish:
then she burst out passionately, "Why did you leave me alone!"
"You sent me away yourself," he replied, half playfully, "and then I
had to go."
"That is true," she said, simply.
They were silent. It grew darker. All at once she stood still. "Here
was a mire last autumn and you used to carry me over. Do you remember?"
He nodded smiling. They went a few steps further. The white reflection
of the evening light played over the water of a reservoir.
"And here you told me about Nice and the Angers Bay."
Again he smiled, and they went on. They came to a statue. "There you
gave me a villa in Bordighera. Have you forgotten how we built air
castles?" said the girl.
The shuddering in the tree tops grew stronger.
She bent back her head and gazed up at her lover as if in a dream. "No
one sees us," she whispered. "Kiss me!"
He kissed her long and passionately. "Again!" she whispered, so softly
that her voice sounded like the rustling of the leaves.
He kissed her again, murmuring, "I never knew how fair life was until
to-day!"
A long sobbing sigh passed through the trees. "Come home, or the
thunderstorm will overtake us," she said--her voice had suddenly grown
harsh. They turned back.