torpor. They had agreed to leave at seven so as to return to the town in
time for their usual occupations. He whispered:
"Do you hear?"
She did not open her eyes; she smiled, she put out her lips, she tried to
kiss him and then let her head fall back on his shoulder.... Through the
window panes he saw the funnel of the steamer slip by against the sky, he
saw the empty deck, and clouds of smoke. Once more he slipped into
dreaminess....
An hour passed without his knowing it. He heard it strike and started in
astonishment.
"Ada!..." he whispered to the girl. "Ada!" he said again. "It's eight
o'clock."
Her eyes were still closed: she frowned and pouted pettishly.
"Oh! let me sleep!" she said.
She sighed wearily and turned her back on him and went to sleep once more.
He began to dream. His blood ran bravely, calmly through him. His limpid
senses received the smallest impressions simply and freshly. He rejoiced in
his strength and youth. Unwittingly he was proud of being a man. He smiled
in his happiness, and felt himself alone: alone as he had always been, more
lonely even but without sadness, in a divine solitude. No more fever. "No
more shadows. Nature could freely cast her reflection upon his soul in its
serenity. Lying on his back, facing the window, his eyes gazing deep into
the dazzling air with its luminous mists, he smiled:
"How good it is to live!..."
To live!... A boat passed.... The thought suddenly of those who were no
longer alive, of a boat gone by on which they were together: he--she....
She?... Not that one, sleeping by his side.--She, the only she, the
beloved, the poor little woman who was dead.--But is it that one? How came
she there? How did they come to this room? He looks at her, he does not
know her: she is a stranger to him: yesterday morning she did not exist for
him. What does he know of her?--He knows that she is not clever. He knows
that she is not good. He knows that she is not even beautiful with her face
spiritless and bloated with sleep, her low forehead, her mouth open in
breathing, her swollen dried lips pouting like a fish. He knows that he
does not love her. And he is filled with a bitter sorrow when he thinks
that he kissed those strange lips, in the first moment with her, that he
has taken this beautiful body for which he cares nothing on the first night
of their meeting,--and that she whom he loved, he watched her live and die
by his side and never dared touch her hair with his lips, that he will
never know the perfume of her being. Nothing more. All is crumbled away.
The earth has taken all from him. And he never defended what was his....
And while he leaned over the innocent sleeper and scanned her face, and
looked at her with eyes of unkindness, she felt his eyes upon her. Uneasy
under his scrutiny she made a great effort to raise her heavy lids and to
smile: and she said, stammering a little like a waking child:
"Don't look at me. I'm ugly...."
She fell back at once, weighed down with sleep, smiled once more, murmured.
"Oh! I'm so ... so sleepy!..." and went off again into her dreams.
He could not help laughing: he kissed her childish lips more tenderly. He
watched the girl sleeping for a moment longer, and got up quietly. She gave
a comfortable sigh when he was gone. He tried not to wake her as he
dressed, though there was no danger of that: and when he had done he sat in
the chair near the window and watched the steaming smoking river which
looked as though it were covered with ice: and he fell into a brown study
in which there hovered music, pastoral, melancholy.
From time to time she half opened her eyes and looked at him vaguely, took
a second or two, smiled at him, and passed from one sleep to another. She
asked him the time.
"A quarter to nine."
Half asleep she pondered:
"What! Can it be a quarter to nine?"
At half-past nine she stretched, sighed, and said that she was going to get
up.
It was ten o'clock before she stirred. She was petulant.
"Striking again!... The clock is fast!..." He laughed and went and sat on
the bed by her side. She put her arms round his neck and told him her
dreams. He did not listen very attentively and interrupted her with little
love words. But she made him be silent and went on very seriously, as
though she were telling something of the highest importance:
"She was at dinner: the Grand Duke was there: Myrrha was a Newfoundland
dog.... No, a frizzy sheep who waited at table.... Ada had discovered a
method of rising from the earth, of walking, dancing, and lying down in the
air. You see it was quite simple: you had only to do ... thus ... thus ...
and it was done...."
Christophe laughed at her. She laughed too, though a little ruffled at his
laughing. She shrugged her shoulders.
"Ah! you don't understand!..."
They breakfasted on the bed from the same cup, with the same spoon.
At last she got up: she threw off the bedclothes and slipped down from the
bed. Then she sat down to recover her breath and looked at her feet.
Finally she clapped her hands and told him to go out: and as he was in no
hurry about it she took him by the shoulders and thrust him out of the door
and then locked it.
After she had dawdled, looked over and stretched each of her handsome
limbs, she sang, as she washed, a sentimental _Lied_ in fourteen couplets,
threw water at Christophe's face--he was outside drumming on the
window--and as they left she plucked the last rose in the garden and then
they took the steamer. The mist was not yet gone: but the sun shone through
it: they floated through a creamy light. Ada sat at the stern with
Christophe: she was sleepy and a little sulky: she grumbled about the light
in her eyes, and said that she would have a headache all day. And as
Christophe did not take her complaints seriously enough she returned into
morose silence. Her eyes were hardly opened and in them was the funny
gravity of children who have just woke up. But at the next landing-stage an
elegant lady came and sat not far from her, and she grew lively at once:
she talked eagerly to Christophe about things sentimental and
distinguished. She had resumed with him the ceremonious _Sie_.
Christophe was thinking about what she could say to her employer by way of
excuse for her lateness. She was hardly at all concerned about it.
"Bah! It's not the first time."
"The first time that ... what?"
"That I have been late," she said, put out by the question.
He dared not ask her what had caused her lateness.
"What will you tell her?"
"That my mother is ill, dead ... how do I know?"
He was hurt by her talking so lightly.
"I don't want you to lie."
She took offense:
"First of all, I never lie.... And then, I cannot very well tell her...."
He asked her half in jest, half in earnest:
"Why not?"
She laughed, shrugged, and said that he was coarse and ill-bred, and that
she had already asked him not to use the _Du_ to her.
"Haven't I the right?"
"Certainly not."
"After what has happened?"
"Nothing has happened."
She looked at him a little defiantly and laughed: and although she was
joking, he felt most strongly that it would not have cost her much to say
it seriously and almost to believe it. But some pleasant memory tickled
her: for she burst out laughing and looked at Christophe and kissed him
loudly without any concern for the people about, who did not seem to be in
the least surprised by it.
* * * * *
Now on all his excursions he was accompanied by shop-girls and clerks: he
did not like their vulgarity, and used to try to lose them: but Ada out of
contrariness was no longer disposed for wandering in the woods. When it
rained or for some other reason they did not leave the town he would take
her to the theater, or the museum, or the _Thiergarten_: for she insisted
on being seen with him. She even wanted him to go to church with her; but
he was so absurdly sincere that he would not set foot inside a church since
he had lost his belief--(on some other excuse he had resigned his position
as organist)--and at the same time, unknown to himself, remained much too
religious not to think Ada's proposal sacrilegious.
He used to go to her rooms in the evening. Myrrha would be there, for she
lived in the same house. Myrrha was not at all resentful against him: she
would hold out her soft hand, caressingly, and talk of trivial and improper
things and then dip away discreetly. The two women had never seemed to be
such friends as since they had had small reason for being so: they were
always together. Ada had no secrets from Myrrha: she told her everything:
Myrrha listened to everything: they seemed to be equally pleased with it
all.
Christophe was ill at ease in the company of the two women. Their
friendship, their strange conversations, their freedom of manner, the crude
way in which Myrrha especially viewed and spoke of things--(not so much in
his presence, however, as when he was not there, but Ada used to repeat her
sayings to him)--their indiscreet and impertinent curiosity, which was
forever turned upon subjects that were silly or basely sensual, the whole
equivocal and rather animal atmosphere oppressed him terribly, though it
interested him: for he knew nothing like it. He was at sea in the
conversations of the two little beasts, who talked of dress, and made silly
jokes, and laughed in an inept way with their eyes shining with delight
when they were off on the track of some spicy story. He was more at ease
when Myrrha left them. When the two women were together it was like being
in a foreign country without knowing the language. It was impossible to
make himself understood: they did not even listen: they poked fun at the
foreigner.
When he was alone with Ada they went on speaking different languages: but
at least they did make some attempt to understand each other. To tell the
truth, the more he understood her, the less he understood her. She was the
first woman he had known. For if poor Sabine was a woman he had known, he
had known nothing of her: she had always remained for him a phantom of his
heart. Ada took upon herself to make him make up for lost time. In his turn
he tried to solve the riddle of woman; an enigma which perhaps is no enigma
except for those who seek some meaning in it.
Ada was without intelligence: that was the least of her faults. Christophe
would have commended her for it, if she had approved it herself. But
although she was occupied only with stupidities, she claimed to have some
knowledge of the things of the spirit: and she judged everything with
complete assurance. She would talk about music, and explain to Christophe
things which he knew perfectly, and would pronounce absolute judgment and
sentence. It was useless to try to convince her she had pretensions and
susceptibilities in everything; she gave herself airs, she was obstinate,
vain: she would not--she could not understand anything. Why would she not
accept that she could understand nothing? He loved her so much better when
she was content with being just what she was, simply, with her own
qualities and failings, instead of trying to impose on others and herself!
In fact, she was little concerned with thought. She was concerned with
eating, drinking, singing, dancing, crying, laughing, sleeping: she wanted
to be happy: and that would have been all right if she had succeeded. But
although she had every gift for it: she was greedy, lazy, sensual, and
frankly egoistic in a way that revolted and amused Christophe: although she
had almost all the vices which make life pleasant for their fortunate
possessor, if not for their friends--(and even then does not a happy face,
at least if it be pretty, shed happiness on all those who come near
it?)--in spite of so many reasons for being satisfied with life and herself
Ada was not even clever enough for that. The pretty, robust girl, fresh,
hearty, healthy-looking, endowed with abundant spirits and fierce
appetites, was anxious about her health. She bemoaned her weakness, while
she ate enough for four. She was always sorry for herself: she could not
drag herself along, she could not breathe, she had a headache, feet-ache,
her eyes ached, her stomach ached, her soul ached. She was afraid of
everything, and madly superstitious, and saw omens everywhere: at meals the
crossing of knives and forks, the number of the guests, the upsetting of a
salt-cellar: then there must be a whole ritual to turn aside misfortune.
Out walking she would count the crows, and never failed to watch which side
they flew to: she would anxiously watch the road at her feet, and when a
spider crossed her path in the morning she would cry out aloud: then she
would wish to go home and there would be no other means of not interrupting
the walk than to persuade her that it was after twelve, and so the omen was
one of hope rather than of evil. She was afraid of her dreams: she would
recount them at length to Christophe; for hours she would try to recollect
some detail that she had forgotten; she never spared him one; absurdities
piled one on the other, strange marriages, deaths, dressmakers' prices,
burlesque, and sometimes, obscene things. He had to listen to her and give
her his advice. Often she would be for a whole day under the obsession of
her inept fancies. She would find life ill-ordered, she would see things
and people rawly and overwhelm Christophe with her jeremiads; and it seemed
hardly worth while to have broken away from the gloomy middle-class people
with whom he lived to find once more the eternal enemy: the _"trauriger
ungriechischer Hypochondrist_."
But suddenly in the midst of her sulks and grumblings, she would become
gay, noisy, exaggerated: there was no more dealing with her gaiety than
with her moroseness: she would burst out laughing for no reason and seem as
though she were never going to stop: she would rush across the fields, play
mad tricks and childish pranks, take a delight in doing silly things, in
mixing with the earth, and dirty things, and the beasts, and the spiders,
and worms, in teasing them, and hurting them, and making them eat each
other: the cats eat the birds, the fowls the worms, the ants the spiders,
not from any wickedness, or perhaps from an altogether unconscious instinct
for evil, from curiosity, or from having nothing better to do. She seemed
to be driven always to say stupid things, to repeat senseless words again
and again, to irritate Christophe, to exasperate him, set his nerves on
edge, and make him almost beside himself. And her coquetry as soon as
anybody--no matter who--appeared on the road!... Then she would talk
excitedly, laugh noisily, make faces, draw attention to herself: she would
assume an affected mincing gait. Christophe would have a horrible
presentiment that she was going to plunge into serious discussion.--And,
indeed, she would do so. She would become sentimental, uncontrolledly, just
as she did everything: she would unbosom herself in a loud voice.
Christophe would suffer and long to beat her. Least of all could he forgive
her her lack of sincerity. He did not yet know that sincerity is a gift as
rare as intelligence or beauty and that it cannot justly be expected of
everybody. He could not bear a lie: and Ada gave him lies in full measure.
She was always lying, quite calmly, in spite of evidence to the contrary.
She had that astounding faculty for forgetting what is displeasing to
them--or even what has been pleasing to them--which those women possess who
live from moment to moment.
And, in spite of everything, they loved each other with all their hearts.
Ada was as sincere as Christophe in her love. Their love was none the less
true for not being based on intellectual sympathy: it had nothing in common
with base passion. It was the beautiful love of youth: it was sensual, but
not vulgar, because it was altogether youthful: it was naïve, almost
chaste, purged by the ingenuous ardor of pleasure. Although Ada was not, by
a long way, so ignorant as Christophe, yet she had still the divine
privilege of youth of soul and body, that freshness of the senses, limpid
and vivid as a running stream, which almost gives the illusion of purity
and through life is never replaced. Egoistic, commonplace, insincere in her
ordinary life,--love made her simple, true, almost good: she understood in
love the joy that is to be found in self-forgetfulness. Christophe saw this
with delight: and he would gladly have died for her. Who can tell all the
absurd and touching illusions that a loving heart brings to its love! And
the natural illusion of the lover was magnified an hundredfold in
Christophe by the power of illusion which is born in the artist. Ada's
smile held profound meanings for him: an affectionate word was the proof of
the goodness of her heart. He loved in her all that is good and beautiful
in the universe. He called her his own, his soul, his life. They wept
together over their love.
Pleasure was not the only bond between them: there was an indefinable
poetry of memories and dreams,--their own? or those of the men and women
who had loved before them, who had been before them,--in them?... Without a
word, perhaps without knowing it, they preserved the fascination of the
first moments of their meeting in the woods, the first days, the first
nights together: those hours of sleep in each other's arms, still,
unthinking, sinking down into a flood of love and silent joy. Swift
fancies, visions, dumb thoughts, titillating, and making them go pale, and
their hearts sink under their desire, bringing all about them a buzzing as
of bees. A fine light, and tender.... Their hearts sink and beat no more,
borne down in excess of sweetness. Silence, languor, and fever, the
mysterious weary smile of the earth quivering under the first sunlight of
spring.... So fresh a love in two young creatures is like an April morning.
Like April it must pass. Youth of the heart is like an early feast of
sunshine.
* * * * *
Nothing could have brought Christophe closer to Ada in his love than the
way in which he was judged by others.
The day after their first meeting it was known all over the town. Ada made
no attempt to cover up the adventure, and rather plumed herself on her
conquest. Christophe would have liked more discretion: but he felt that the
curiosity of the people was upon him: and as he did not wish to seem to fly
from it, he threw in his lot with Ada. The little town buzzed with tattle.
Christophe's colleagues in the orchestra paid him sly compliments to which
he did not reply, because he would not allow any meddling with his affairs.
The respectable people of the town judged his conduct very severely. He
lost his music lessons with certain families. With others, the mothers
thought that they must now be present at the daughters' lessons, watching
with suspicious eyes, as though Christophe were intending to carry off the
precious darlings. The young ladies were supposed to know nothing.
Naturally they knew everything: and while they were cold towards Christophe
for his lack of taste, they were longing to have further details. It was
only among the small tradespeople, and the shop people, that Christophe was
popular: but not for long: he was just as annoyed by their approval as by
the condemnation of the rest: and being unable to do anything against that
condemnation, he took steps not to keep their approval: there was no
difficulty about that. He was furious with the general indiscretion.
The most indignant of all with him were Justus Euler and the Vogels. They
took Christophe's misconduct as a personal outrage. They had not made any
serious plans concerning him: they distrusted--especially Frau Vogel--these
artistic temperaments. But as they were naturally discontented and always
inclined to think themselves persecuted by fate, they persuaded themselves
that they had counted on the marriage of Christophe and Rosa; as soon as
they were quite certain that such a marriage would never come to pass, they
saw in it the mark of the usual ill luck. Logically, if fate were
responsible for their miscalculation, Christophe could not be: but the
Vogels' logic was that which gave them the greatest opportunity for finding
reasons for being sorry for themselves. So they decided that if Christophe
had misconducted himself it was not so much for his own pleasure as to give
offense to them. They were scandalized. Very religious, moral, and oozing
domestic virtue, they were of those to whom the sins of the flesh are the
most shameful, the most serious, almost the only sins, because they are the
only dreadful sins--(it is obvious that respectable people are never likely
to be tempted to steal or murder).--And so Christophe seemed to them
absolutely wicked, and they changed their demeanor towards him. They were
icy towards him and turned away as they passed him. Christophe, who was in
no particular need of their conversation, shrugged his shoulders at all the
fuss. He pretended not to notice Amalia's insolence: who, while she
affected contemptuously to avoid him, did all that she could to make him
fall in with her so that she might tell him all that was rankling in her.
Christophe was only touched by Rosa's attitude. The girl condemned him more
harshly even than his family. Not that this new love of Christophe's seemed
to her to destroy her last chances of being loved by him: she knew that she
had no chance left--(although perhaps she went on hoping: she always
hoped).--But she had made an idol of Christophe: and that idol had crumbled
away. It was the worst sorrow for her ... yes, a sorrow more cruel to the
innocence and honesty of her heart, than being disdained and forgotten by
him. Brought up puritanically, with a narrow code of morality, in which she
believed passionately, what she had heard about Christophe had not only
brought her to despair but had broken her heart. She had suffered already
when he was in love with Sabine: she had begun then to lose some of her
illusions about her hero. That Christophe could love so commonplace a
creature seemed to her inexplicable and inglorious. But at least that love
was pure, and Sabine was not unworthy of it. And in the end death had
passed over it and sanctified it.... But that at once Christophe should
love another woman,--and such a woman!--was base, and odious! She took upon
herself the defense of the dead woman against him. She could not forgive
him for having forgotten her.... Alas! He was thinking of her more than
she: but she never thought that in a passionate heart there might be room
for two sentiments at once: she thought it impossible to be faithful to the
past without sacrifice of the present. Pure and cold, she had no idea of
life or of Christophe: everything in her eyes was pure, narrow, submissive
to duty, like herself. Modest of soul, modest of herself, she had only one
source of pride: purity: she demanded it of herself and of others. She
could not forgive Christophe for having so lowered himself, and she would
never forgive him.
Christophe tried to talk to her, though not to explain himself--(what could
he say to her? what could he say to a little puritanical and naïve
girl?).--He would have liked to assure her that he was her friend, that he
wished for her esteem, and had still the right to it He wished to prevent
her absurdly estranging herself from him.--But Rosa avoided him in stern
silence: he felt that she despised him.
He was both sorry and angry. He felt that he did not deserve such contempt;
and yet in the end he was bowled over by it: and thought himself guilty. Of
all the reproaches cast against him the most bitter came from himself when
he thought of Sabine. He tormented himself.
"Oh! God, how is it possible? What sort of creature am I?..."