AMIDST THE BUSHES
After the first outburst of raving, impetuous grief, the grief of a
child rather than the grief of a man, Gaspard rose up from where he had
cast himself down by Yves. The sun had long passed from the sky and the
star-smitten sea came in smoothly, rhythmically, breaking in foam on
the starlit sands, and there on the sand lay Yves, listening to what
the sea was saying.
His great right fist, clenched, was lying on his breast; one might
have fancied that the meaning of it all and the mystery of that sky
so filled with fire and passionate life, and those wastes of the
ever-fretting sea, had been revealed to him in one stupendous moment,
that he had struck himself on the breast in the stupefaction of wonder
that he was gazing and listening, motionless before the revelation
forevermore.
Yves from a common man had become at once and at a stroke a part of
the immensity and the wonder of the night, the reachless stars and the
fathomless sea; and, for a moment, Gaspard, standing before the body of
the man he had slain, saw death as the prehistoric man saw it before
language had robbed thought of its freshness and power. For a moment
only, and then the stars became the stars again, and the sea the sea,
and the dead body of Yves the body of a man he had slain in anger.
And now that his southern nature had spent itself in a wild outburst
of grief just as a child spends itself in an outburst of weeping,
thought came back.
Well, then?—whose fault was it?
The knife was flung with no intent to kill,—what right had he to die
of a scratch like that?—and then the vile word—that was the last of a
long series of injuries. And bit by bit his mind went back counting up
the score of these “injuries,” right back to the tobacco-smelling bar
of the Riga and to Anisette as he had last seen her, with her little
grimy hand resting on the great hairy paw of Yves. That remembrance
like a hideous lamp lit up all his grievances, enlarging them two-fold.
No, he was not to blame; he had not meant to kill, and if he had, _Dieu
de Dieu_, look at the provocation!
He stood for a moment, his chin resting in his hand, his eyes on the
body before him; then he turned and, walking down to the sea-edge,
dipped his hands and washed his face in the foam. As he turned up the
beach again towards the trees, wiping his streaming face with the
sleeve of his coat, he felt as though all the occurrences of the last
few hours had happened years ago, so remote did they seem for the
moment. The sight of the body lying there so still in the starlight
brought him to a pause. Grief rushed back on him, driving all little
and evil things from his mind. He stood looking at his handiwork.
It had been an accident; he had not meant to kill; he did not even
remember flinging the knife. The act had been automatic and committed
in blind rage—all the same, he had killed Yves.
Then, loathing the business which had to be done, he seized the body of
his dead companion by the shoulders and began to drag it towards the
bushes.
* * * * *
As he stepped from the bushes, his task accomplished, he cast his eyes
over the beach. It lay white in the starlight, and there was nothing
now to tell of tragedy but the knife lying there just as it had fallen
after its murderous work. He picked it up, dug it in the sand, and
replaced it in its sheath. The belt with the pouch of money lay under
the trees; he picked it up automatically and, carrying it in his hand,
turned to the little tent.
As he walked towards the tent two heavy hands seemed pressing down on
his shoulders; unutterable weariness had suddenly fallen upon him,
robbing him of mind and almost of movement, so that when he reached the
tent he was staggering like a drunken man.
He crept under the shelter of the tent, and with the belt and the money
beside him fell into a profound and dreamless sleep.