Once more Paul found himself ascending his own staircase; but now the
danger was past, or at least the fear of danger.
Nevertheless he halted before his mother's door, deeming that it
would be advisable to tell her the result of his interview with Agnes
and of her threat to denounce him. But he heard the sound of regular
breathing and passed on; his mother had quietly fallen asleep, for
henceforth she was sure of him and felt that he was safe.
Safe! He looked round his room as though he had just returned from a
long and disastrous journey. Everything was peaceful and tidy, and
he moved about on tiptoe as he began to undress, for the sake of not
disturbing that orderliness and silence. His clothes hanging from
their hooks, blacker than their shadows on the wall, his hat above
them, stuck forward on a wooden peg, the sleeves of his cassock
falling limply as though tired out, all had the vague appearance of
some dark and empty phantom, some fleshless and bloodless vampire
that inspired a nameless dread. It was like the shadow of that sin
from which he had cut himself free, but which was waiting to follow
him again to-morrow on his way through the world.
An instant more, and he perceived with terror that the nightmare
obsessed him still. He was not safe yet, there was another night to
be got through, as the voyager crosses a last stretch of turbulent
sea. He was very weary and his heavy eyelids drooped with fatigue,
but an intolerable anxiety prevented him from throwing himself on his
bed, or even sitting down on a chair or resting in any way whatever;
he wandered here and there, doing small, unusual, useless things,
softly opening drawer after drawer and inspecting what there was
inside.
As he passed before the mirror he looked at his own reflection and
beheld himself grey of face, with purple lips and hollow eyes. "Look
well at yourself, Paul," he said to his image, and he stepped back
a little so that the lamplight might fall better on the glass. The
figure in the mirror stepped back also, as though seeking to escape
him, and as he stared into its eyes and noted the dilated pupils he
had a strange impression that the real Paul was the one in the glass,
a Paul who never lied and who betrayed by the pallor of his face all
his awful fear of the morrow.
"Why do I pretend even to myself a security which I do not feel?" was
his silent question. "I must go away this very night as she bade me."
And somewhat calmer for the resolve he threw himself on his bed. And
thus, with closed eyes and face pressed into the pillow, he believed
he could search more deeply into his conscience.
"Yes, I must leave to-night. Christ himself commands us to avoid
creating scandals. I had better wake my mother and tell her, and
perhaps we can leave together; she can take me away with her again
as she did when I was a child and I can begin a new life in another
place."
But he felt that all this was mere exaltation and that he had not
the courage to do as he proposed. And why should he? He really felt
quite sure that Agnes would not carry out her threat, so why should
he go away? He was not even confronted with the danger of going back
to her and falling into sin again, for he had now been tried and had
overcome temptation.
But the exaltation took hold of him again.
"Nevertheless, Paul, you will have to go. Awaken your mother and
depart together. Don't you know who it is speaking to you? It is
I, Agnes. You really believe that I shall not carry out my threat?
Perhaps I shall not, but I advise you to go, all the same. You think
you have got rid of me? And yet I am within you, I am the evil genius
of your life. If you remain here I shall never leave you alone for
one single instant; I shall be the shadow beneath your feet, the
barrier between you and your mother, between you and your own self.
Go."
Then he tried to pacify her, in order to pacify his own conscience.
"Yes, I am going, I tell you! I am going--we will go together, you
within me, more alive than I myself. Be content, torment me no more!
We are together, journeying together, borne on the wings of time
towards eternity. Divided and distant we were when our eyes first
met and our lips kissed; divided were we then and enemies; only
now begins our real union, in thy hatred, in my patience, in my
renunciation."
* * * * *
Then weariness slowly overcame him. He heard a subdued, continuous
moaning outside his window, like a dove seeking her mate: and that
mournful cry was like the lament of the night itself, a night pale
with moonlight, a soft, veiled light, with the sky all flecked with
little white clouds like feathers. Then he became aware that it was
he himself who was moaning; but sleep was already stealing over him,
calming his senses, and fear and sorrow and remembrance faded away.
He dreamed he was really on a journey, riding up the mountain paths
towards the plateau. Everything was peaceful and clear; between the
big yellow elder trees he could see stretches of grass, of a soft
green that gave rest to the eyes, and motionless upon the rocks the
eagles blinked at the sun.
Suddenly the keeper stood before him, saluted, and placed an open
book on his saddle-bow. And he began to read St. Paul's Epistle to
the Corinthians, taking it up at the precise point where he had left
off the previous night: "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise and
that they are vain."
* * * * *
On Sundays Mass was later than on other days, but Paul always went
early to the church to hear the confessions of those women who wished
to attend Communion later. So his mother called him at the usual time.
He had slept for some hours, a heavy dreamless sleep, and when he
woke his memory was a complete blank, he only had a supreme desire to
go to sleep again immediately. But the knocks on his door persisted,
and then he remembered. Instantly he was on his feet, numb with dread.
"Agnes will come to church and denounce me before all the people,"
was his one thought.
He did not know why, but somehow whilst he slept the certainty
that she would carry out her threat had taken firm root in his
consciousness.
He dropped down in his chair with trembling knees and a sense of
complete helplessness. His mind was clouded and confused: he wondered
vaguely if it would not be possible even now to avert the scandal--he
might feign illness and not say Mass at all, and thus gain time
in which he might endeavour to pacify Agnes. But the very idea of
beginning the whole thing over again, of suffering a second time all
his misery of the previous day, only increased his mental torment.
He got up, and his head seemed to hit the sky through the glass
of his window, and he stamped his feet on the floor to dispel the
numbness that was paralysing his very blood. Then he dressed,
drawing his leather belt tightly round his waist and folding
his mantle round him as he had seen the hunters buckle on their
cartridge-belts and wrap themselves up in their cloaks before
starting out for the mountains. When at last he flung open his window
and leaned out he felt that only then were his eyes awaking to the
light of day after the nightmare of the dark hours, only then had
he escaped from the prison of his own self to make his peace with
external things. But it was a forced peace, full of secret rancour,
and it sufficed for him to draw in his head from the cool fresh air
outside to the warm and perfumed atmosphere of his room for him to
fall back into himself, a prey again to his gnawing dread.
So he fled downstairs, wondering what he had better tell his mother.
He heard her somewhat harsh voice driving off the chickens who were
trying to invade the dining-room, and the fluttering of their wings
as they scattered before her, and he smelt the fragrance of hot
coffee and the clean sweet scents from the garden. In the lane under
the ridge there was a tinkle of bells as the goats were driven to
their pasture, little bells that sounded like childish echoes of the
cheerful if monotonous chime wherewith Antiochus, up in the church
tower, summoned the people to wake from sleep and come to hear Mass.
Everything around was sweet and peaceful, bathed in the rosy light of
early morning. And Paul remembered his dream.
There was nothing to hinder him from going out, from going to church
and taking up his ordinary life again. Yet all his fear returned
upon him; he was afraid alike of going forward or of turning back.
As he stood on the step of the open door he felt as if he were on
the summit of some precipitous mountain, it was impossible to get
any higher and below him yawned the abyss. So he stood there for
unspeakable moments, during which his heart beat furiously and he had
the physical sensation of falling, of struggling at the bottom of a
gulf, in a swirl of foaming waters, a wheel that turned helplessly,
vainly beating the stream that swept on its relentless course.
It was his own heart that turned and turned helplessly in the
whirlpool of life. He closed the door and went back into the house,
and sat down on the stairs as his mother had done the previous night.
He gave up trying to solve the problem that tortured him and simply
waited for some one to come and help him.
And there his mother found him. When he saw her he got up
immediately, feeling somehow comforted at once, yet humiliated, too,
in the very depths of his being, so sure was he of the advice she
would give him to proceed upon his chosen way.
But at the first sight of him her worn face grew pale, as though
refined through grief.
"Paul!" she cried, "what are you doing there? Are you ill?"
"Mother," he said, walking to the front door without turning into the
dining-room, "I did not want to wake you last night, it was so late.
Well, I went to see her. I went to see her...."
His mother had already recovered her composure and stood looking
fixedly at him. In the brief silence that followed his words they
could hear the church bell ringing quickly and insistently as though
it were right over the house.
"She is quite well," continued Paul, "but she is very excited and
insists that I shall leave the place at once: otherwise she threatens
to come to church and create a scandal by denouncing me before the
congregation."
His mother kept silence, but he felt her at his side, stern and
steadfast, upholding him, supporting him as she had supported his
earliest steps.
"She wanted me to go away this very night. And she said that ... if I
did not go, she would come to church this morning.... I am not afraid
of her: besides, I don't believe she will come."
He opened the front door and a flood of golden light poured into the
dark little passage, as though trying to entice him and his mother
out into the sunshine. Paul walked towards the church without
turning round, and his mother stood at the door looking after him.
She had not opened her lips, but a slight trembling seized her again,
and only with an effort could she maintain her outward composure. All
at once she went up to her bedroom and hurriedly dressed for church:
she was going too, and she, too, drew in her belt and walked with
firm steps. And before she left the house she remembered to drive
out the intruding chickens again, and to draw the coffee-pot to the
side of the fire; then she twisted the long end of her scarf over her
mouth and chin to hide the obstinate trembling that would persist in
spite of all her efforts to overcome it.
So it was only with a glance of the eyes that she could return the
greetings of the women who were coming up from the village, and of
the old men already seated on the low parapet round the square before
the church, their black pointed caps standing out in sharp relief
against the background of rosy morning sky.