many things of the past and the future. During the long years when he
had lived alone, traveling, speaking little but seeing much, he had
acquired, almost unconsciously, the power of reading the human face,
that rich and complex language formed by the ages. It is a thousand
times richer and more complex than the spoken language. The spirit of
the race is expressed in it.... There are perpetual contrasts between
the lines of the face and the words that come from it. Take the profile
of a girl, clear-cut, a little hard, in the Burne-Jones style, tragic,
consumed by a secret passion, jealousy, a Shakespearian sorrow.... She
speaks: and, behold, she is a little bourgeois creature, as stupid as an
owl, a selfish, commonplace coquette, with no idea of the terrible
forces inscribed upon her body. And yet such passion, such violence are
in her. In what shape will they one day spring forth? Will it be in the
lust of gain, conjugal jealousy, or splendid energy, or morbid
wickedness? There is no knowing. It may be that she will transmit them
to another creature of her blood before the time comes for the eruption.
But it is an element with which we have to reckon as, like a fatality,
it hovers above the race.
Grazia also bore the weight of that uneasy heritage, which, of all the
patrimony of ancient families, is the least in danger of being
dissipated in transit. She, at least, was aware of it. It is a great
source of strength to know our weakness, to make ourselves, if not the
masters, the pilots of the soul of the race to which we are bound, which
bears us like a vessel upon its waters,--to make fate our instrument, to
use it as a sail which we furl or clew up according to the wind. When
Grazia closed her eyes, she could hear within herself more than one
disturbing voice, of a tone familiar to her. But in her healthy soul
even the dissonances were blended to form a profound, soft music, under
the guiding hand of her harmonious reason.
Unhappily it is not within our power to transmit the best of our blood
to the creatures of our blood.
Of Grazia's two children, the little girl, Aurora, who was eleven years
old, was like her mother; she was not so pretty, being a little coarser
in fiber; she had a slight limp; she was a good little girl,
affectionate and gay, with splendid health, abundant good nature, few
natural gifts, except idleness, a passion for doing nothing. Christophe
adored her. When he saw her with Grazia he felt the charm of a twofold
creature, seen at two ages of life, two generations together.... Two
flowers upon one stem; a Holy Family of Leonardo, the Virgin and Saint
Anne, different shades of the same smile. With one glance he could take
in the whole blossoming of a woman's soul; and it was at once fair and
sad to see: he could see whence it came and whither it was going. There
is nothing more natural than for an ardent, chaste heart to love two
sisters at one and the same time, or mother and daughter. Christophe
would have loved the woman of his love through all her descendants, just
as in her he loved the stock of which she came. Her every smile, her
every tear, every line in her face, were they not living beings, the
memories of a life which was before her eyes opened to the light, the
forerunners of a life which was to come, when her eyes should be forever
closed?
The little boy, Lionello, was nine. He was much handsomer than his
sister, of a finer stock, too fine, worn out and bloodless, wherein he
was like his father. He was intelligent, well-endowed with bad
instincts, demonstrative, and dissembling. He had big blue eyes, long,
girlish, fair hair, a pale complexion, a delicate chest, and was
morbidly nervous, which last, being a born comedian and strangely
skilled in discovering people's weaknesses, he upon occasion turned to
good account. Grazia was inclined to favor him, with the natural
preference of a mother for her least healthy child,--and also through
the attraction which all kindly, good women feel for the sons who are
neither well nor ill (for in them a part of their life which they have
suppressed finds solace). In such attraction there is something of the
memory of the husbands who have made them suffer, whom they loved even
while they despised them, or the strange flora of the soul, which wax
strong in the dark, humid hot-house of conscience.
In spite of Grazia's care equally to bestow her tenderness upon her
children, Aurora felt the difference, and was a little hurt by it.
Christophe divined her feeling, and she divined Christophe's: they came
together instinctively; while between Christophe and Lionello there was
an antipathy which the boy covered up with exaggerated, lisping,
charming ways,--and Christophe thrust from him as a shameful feeling. He
wrestled with himself and forced himself to cherish this other man's
child as though he were the child whom it would have been ineffably
sweet for him to have had by the beloved. He would not allow himself to
see Lionello's bad nature or anything that could remind him of the
"other man": he set himself to find in him only Grazia. She, more
clear-sighted, was under no illusions about her son, and she only loved
him the more.
However, the disease which for years had been lying dormant in the boy
broke out. Consumption supervened. Grazia resolved to go and shut
herself up in a sanatorium in the Alps with Lionello, Christophe begged
to be allowed to go with her. To avoid scandal she dissuaded him. He was
hurt by the excessive importance which she attached to the conventions.
She went away and left her daughter with Colette. It was not long before
she began to feel terribly lonely among the sick people who talked of
nothing but their illness, surrounded by the pitiless mountains rising
above the rags and tatters of men. To escape from the depressing
spectacle of the invalids with their spittoons spying upon each other
and marking the progress of death over each one of them, she left the
Palace hospital, and took a chalet, where she lived aloof with her own
little invalid. Instead of improving Lionello's condition, the high
altitude aggravated it. His fever waxed greater. Grazia spent nights of
anguish. Christophe knew it by his keen intuition, although she told him
nothing: for she was growing more and more rigid in her pride; she
longed for Christophe to be with her, but she had forbidden him to
follow her, and she could not bring herself to confess: "I am too weak,
I need you...."
One evening, as she stood in the veranda of the chalet in the twilight
hour, which is so bitter for hearts in agony, she saw ... she thought she
saw coming up from the station of the funicular railway ... a man walking
hurriedly: he stopped, hesitating, with his back a little bowed. She
went indoors to avoid his seeing her: she held her hands over her heart,
and, quivering with emotion, she laughed. Although she was not at all
religious she knelt down, hid her face in her hands; she felt the need
of thanking some one.... But he did not come. She went back to the
window, and, hiding behind the curtains, looked out. He had stopped,
leaning against a fence round a field, near the gate of the chalet. He
dared not enter. And, even more perturbed than he, she smiled, and said
in a low voice:
"Come...."
At last he made up his mind and rang the bell. Already she was at the
door, and she opened it. His eyes looked at her like the eyes of a
faithful dog, who is afraid of being beaten. He said:
"I came.... Forgive me...."
She said:
"Thank you."
Then she confessed how she had expected him. Christophe helped her to
nurse the boy, whose condition was growing worse. His heart was in the
task. The boy treated him with irritable animosity: he took no pains now
to conceal it: he said many malicious things to him. Christophe put it
all down to his illness. He was extraordinarily patient. He passed many
painful days by the boy's bedside, until the critical night, on passing
through which, Lionello, whom they had given up for lost, was saved. And
they felt then such pure happiness--watching hand in hand over the
little invalid--that suddenly she got up, took her cloak and hood, and
led Christophe out of doors, along the road, in the snow, the silence
and the night, under the cold stars. Leaning on his arm, excitedly
breathing in the frozen peace of the world, they hardly spoke at all.
They made no allusion to their love. Only when they returned, on the
threshold, she said: "My dear, dear friend!..."
And her eyes were lit up by the happiness of having saved her child.
That was all. But they felt that the bond between them had become
sacred.
On her return to Paris after Lionello's long convalescence, she took a
little house at Passy, and did not worry any more about "avoiding
scandal": she felt brave enough to dare opinion for her friend's sake.
Their life henceforth was so intimately linked that it would have seemed
cowardly to her to conceal the friendship which united them at
the--inevitable--risk of having it slandered. She received Christophe at
all hours of the day, and was seen with him out walking and at the
theater: she spoke familiarly to him in company. Colette thought they
were making themselves too conspicuous. Grazia would stop her hints with
a smile, and quietly go her way.
And yet she had given Christophe no new right over her. They were
nothing more than friends: he always addressed her with the same
affectionate respect. But they hid nothing from each other: they
consulted each other about everything: and insensibly Christophe assumed
a sort of paternal authority in the house: Grazia listened to and
followed his advice. She was no longer the same woman since the winter
she had spent in the sanatorium; the anxiety and fatigue had seriously
tried her health, which, till then, had been sturdy. Her soul was
affected by it. In spite of an occasional lapse into her old caprices,
she had become mysteriously more serious, more reflective, and was more
constantly desirous of being kind, of learning and not hurting any one.
Every day saw her more softened by Christophe's affection, his
disinterestedness, and the purity of his heart: and she was thinking of
one day giving him the great happiness of which he no longer dared to
dream, that of becoming his wife.
He had never broached the subject again after her first refusal, for he
thought he had no right to do so. But regretfully he clung to his
impossible hope. Though he respected what his friend had said, he was
not convinced by her disillusioned attitude towards marriage: he
persisted in believing that the union of two people who love each other,
profoundly and devotedly, is the height of human happiness.--His regrets
were revived by coming in contact once more with the Arnauds.
Madame Arnaud was more than fifty. Her husband was sixty-five or
sixty-six. Both seemed to be older. He had grown stout: she was very
thin and rather shrunken: spare though she had been in the old days, she
was now just a wisp of a woman. After Arnaud's retirement they had gone
to live in a house in the country. They had no link with the life of the
time save the newspaper, which in the torpor of their little town and
their drowsy life brought them the tardy echo of the voice of the world.
Once they saw Christophe's name. Madame Arnaud wrote him a few
affectionate, rather ceremonious words, to tell him how glad they were
of his fame. He took the train at once without letting them know.
He found them in the garden, dozing under the round canopy of an ash, on
a warm summer afternoon. They were like Boecklin's old couple, sleeping
hand in hand, in an arbor. Sun, sleep, old age overwhelm them: they are
falling, they are already half-buried in the eternal dream. And, as the
last gleam of their life, their tenderness persists to the end. The
clasp of their hands, the dying warmth of their bodies....--They were
delighted to see Christophe, for the sake of all the memories of the
past he brought with him. They talked of the old days, which at that
distance seemed brilliant and full of light.
Arnaud loved talking, but he had lost his memory for names. Madame
Arnaud whispered them to him. She liked saying nothing and preferred
listening to talking: but the image of the old times had been kept alive
and clear in her silent heart: in glimmers they would appear sharply
before her like shining pebbles in a stream. There was one such memory
that Christophe more than once saw reflected in her eyes as she looked
at him with affectionate compassion: but Olivier's name was not
pronounced. Old Arnaud plied his wife with touching, awkward little
attentions; he was fearful lest she should catch cold, or be too hot; he
would gaze hungrily with anxious love at her dear, faded face, and with
a weary smile she would try to reassure him. Christophe watched them
tenderly, with a little envy.... To grow old together. To love in the
dear companion even the wear of time. To say: "I know those lines round
her eyes and nose. I have seen them coming. I know when they came. Her
scant gray hair has lost its color, day by day, in my company, something
because of me, alas! Her sweet face has swollen and grown red in the
fires of the weariness and sorrow that have consumed us. My soul, how
much better I love thee for that thou hast suffered and grown old with
me. Every one of thy wrinkles is to me as music from the past...." The
charm of these old people, who, after the long vigil of life, spent side
by side, go side by side to sleep in the peace of the night! To see them
was both sweet and profitable and sorrowful for Christophe. Oh! How
lovely had life and death been thus!...
When he next saw Grazia, he could not help telling her of his visit. He
did not tell her of the thoughts roused in him by his visit. But she
divined them. He was tender and wistful as he spoke. He turned his eyes
away from her and was silent every now and then. She looked at him and
smiled, and Christophe's unease infected her.
That evening, when she was alone in her room, she lay dreaming. She went
over the story Christophe had told her; but the image she saw through it
was not that of the old couple sleeping under the ash: it was the shy,
ardent dream of her friend. And her heart was filled with love for him.
She lay in the dark and thought:
"Yes. It is absurd, criminal and absurd, to waste the opportunity for
such happiness. What joy in the world can equal the joy of making the
man you love happy?... What! Do I love him?..."
She was silent, deeply moved, listening to the answer of her heart.
"I love him."
Just then a dry, hard, hasty cough came from the next room where the
children were sleeping. Grazia pricked her ears: since the boy's illness
she had always been anxious. She called out to him. He made no reply,
and went on coughing. She sprang from her bed and went to him. He was
irritated, and moaned, and said that he was not well, and broke out
coughing again.
"What is the matter?"
He did not reply, but only groaned that he was ill.
"My darling, please tell me what is the matter?"
"I don't know."
"Is it here?"
"Yes. No. I don't know. I am ill all over."
On that he had a fresh fit of coughing, violent and exaggerated. Grazia
was alarmed: she had a feeling that he was forcing himself to cough: but
she was ashamed of her thought, as she saw the boy sweating and choking
for breath. She kissed him and spoke to him tenderly: he seemed to grow
calmer; but as soon as she tried to leave him he broke out coughing
again. She had to stay shivering by his bedside, for he would not even
allow her to go away to dress herself, and insisted on her holding his
hand; and he would not let her go until he fell asleep again. Then she
went to bed, chilled, uneasy, harassed. And she found it impossible to
gather up the threads of her dreams.
The boy had a singular power of reading his mother's thoughts. This
instinctive genius is often--though seldom in such a high degree--to be
found in creatures of the same stock: they hardly need to look at each
other to know each other's thoughts: they can guess them by the
breathing, by a thousand imperceptible signs. This natural aptness,
which is fortified by living together, was in Lionello sharpened and
refined by his ever wakeful malevolence. He had the insight of the
desire to hurt. He detested Christophe. Why? Why does a child take a
dislike to a person who has never done him any harm? It is often a
matter of chance. It is enough for a child to have begun by persuading
himself that he detests some one, for it to become a habit, and the more
he is argued with the more desperately he will cling to it. But often,
again, there are deeper reasons for it, which pass the child's
understanding: he has no idea of them.... From the first moment when he
saw Christophe, the son of Count Berény had a feeling of animosity
towards the man whom his mother had loved. It was as though he had
instinctively felt the exact moment when Grazia began to think of
marrying Christophe. From that moment on he never ceased to spy upon
them. He was always between them, and refused to leave the room whenever
Christophe came; or he would manage to burst in upon them when they were
sitting together. More than that, when his mother was alone, thinking of
Christophe, he seemed to divine her thoughts. He would sit near her and
watch her. His gaze would embarrass her and almost make her blush. She
would get up to conceal her unease.--He would take a delight in saying
unkind things about Christophe in her presence. She would bid him be
silent, but he would go on. And if she tried to punish him, he would
threaten to make himself ill. That was the strategy he had always used
successfully since he was a child. When he was quite small, one day when
he had been scolded, he had, out of revenge, undressed himself and lain
naked on the floor so as to catch cold.--Once, when Christophe brought a
piece of music that he had composed for Grazia's birthday, the boy took
the manuscript and hid it. It was found in tatters in a wood-box. Grazia
lost her patience and scolded him severely. Then he wept and howled, and
stamped his feet, and rolled on the ground, and had an attack of nerves.
Grazia was terrified, and kissed and implored him, and promised to do
whatever he wanted.
From that day on he was the master: for he knew it: and very frequently
he had recourse to the weapon with which he had succeeded. There was
never any knowing how far his attacks were natural and how far
counterfeit. Soon he was not satisfied with using them vengefully when
he was opposed in any way, but took to using them out of spite whenever
his mother and Christophe planned to spend the evening together. He even
went so far as to play his dangerous game out of sheer idleness, or
theatricality, to discover the extent of his power. He was
extraordinarily ingenious in inventing strange, nervous accidents;
sometimes in the middle of dinner he would be seized with a convulsive
trembling, and upset his glass or break his plate; sometimes, as he was
going upstairs, he would clutch at the banisters with his hand: his
fingers would stiffen: he would pretend that he could not open them
again; or he would have a sharp pain in his side and roll about,
howling; or he would choke. Of course, in the end he developed a genuine
nervous illness. Christophe and Grazia were at their wits' end. Their
peaceful meetings--their quiet talks, their readings, their music, which
were as a festival to them--all their humble happiness was henceforth
disturbed.
Every now and then, however, the little imp would, give them a respite,
partly because he was tired of his play-acting, partly because his
child's nature took possession of him again, and made him think of
something else. (He was sure now that he had won the day.)
Then, quickly, quietly, they would seize their opportunity. Every hour
that they could steal in this way was the more precious to them as they
could never be sure of enjoying it to the end. How near they felt to
each other! Why could they not always be so!... One day Grazia herself
confessed to her regret. Christophe took her hand.
"Yes. Why?" he asked.
"You know why, my dear," she said, with a miserable smile.
Christophe knew. He knew that she was sacrificing their happiness to her
son: he knew that she was not deceived by Lionello's lies, that she
still adored him: he knew the blind egoism of such domestic affections
which make the best pour out their reserves of devotion to the advantage
of the bad or mediocre creatures of their blood, so that there is
nothing left for them to give to those who would be more worthy, whom
they love best, but who are not of their blood. And although he was
irritated by it, although there were times when he longed to kill the
little monster who was destroying their lives, yet he bowed his head in
silence, and understood that Grazia could not do otherwise.
So they renounced their life without vain recrimination. But if the
happiness which was their right could be snatched from them, nothing
could prevent the union of their hearts. Their very renunciation, their
common sacrifice, held them by bonds stronger than those of the flesh.
Each confided the sorrow of it all to the other, passed over the burden
of it, and took on the other's suffering: so even their sorrow became
joy. Christophe called Grazia "his confessor." He did not hide from her
the weaknesses from which his pride had to suffer: rather he accused
himself with too great contrition, and she would smilingly soothe his
boyish scruples. He even confessed to her his material poverty; but he
could only bring himself to do that after it had been agreed between
them that she should neither offer him, nor he accept from her, any
help. It was the last barrier of pride which he upheld and she
respected. In place of the well-being which she could not bring into her
friend's life, she found many ways of filling it with what was
infinitely more precious to him--namely, her tenderness. He felt the
breath of it all about him, during every hour of the day: he never
opened his eyes in the morning, never closed them at night, without a
prayer of love and adoration. And when she awoke, or at night, as often
happened, lay for hours without sleeping, she thought:
"My dear is thinking of me."
And a great peace came upon them and surrounded them.
* * * * *
However, her health had given way. Grazia was constantly in bed, or had
to spend the day lying on a sofa. Christophe used to go every day and
read to her, and show her his new work. Then she would get up from the
chair, and limp to the piano, for her feet were swollen. She would play
the music he had brought. It was the greatest joy she could give him. Of
all his pupils she and Cécile were the most gifted. But while Cécile had
an instinctive feeling for music, with hardly any understanding of it,
to Grazia it was a lovely harmonious language full of meaning for her.
The demoniac quality in life and art escaped her altogether: she brought
to bear on it the clarity of her intelligence and heart. Christophe's
genius was saturated with her clarity. His friend's playing helped him
to understand the obscure passions he had expressed. With closed eyes he
would listen, and follow her, and hold her by the hand, as she led him
through the maze of his own thoughts. By living in his music through
Grazia's soul, he was wedded to her soul and possessed it. Prom this
mysterious conjugation sprang music which was the fruit of the mingling
of their lives. One day, as he brought her a collection of his works,
woven of his substance and hers, he said:
"Our children."
Theirs was an unbroken communion whether they were together or apart;
sweet were the evenings spent in the peace and quiet of the old house,
which was a fit setting for the image of Grazia, where the silent,
cordial servants, who were devoted to Christophe, extended to him a
little of the respectful affection they had for their mistress. Joyous
was it to listen to the song of the fleeting hours, and to see the tide
of life ebbing away.... A shadow of anxiety was thrown on their
happiness by Grazia's failing health. But, in spite of her little
infirmities, she was so serene that her hidden sufferings did but
heighten her charm. She was his _"liebe, leidende, und doch so
rührende, heitre Freundin"_ ("his dear, suffering, touching friend,
always so bright and cheerful"). And sometimes, in the evening, when he
left her with his heart big with love so that he could not wait until
the morrow, he would write:
"Liebe, liebe, liebe, liebe, liebe Grazia...."