HOW A SECOND AWAKENING MAY BE MORE BITTER THAN THE FIRST
I
It all seemed like the recurrence of that lovely dream of long
ago--the awakening to a sense of well-being and of security; the
sweet-smelling couch; the clean linen; the fragrance of the air, and
above all the tender, pitying blue eyes and the tiny brown mole which
challenged a kiss.
When Gilles opened his eyes, he promptly closed them again, for fear
of losing that delicious sensation of being in dreamland, which
filled his whole body and soul with inexpressible beatitude. But
even as he did so, a gentle voice, light and soothing as the murmur
of a limpid stream, reached his ear.
'Will you not look up once more, Messire,' the angelic voice said
softly, 'and assure me that you are not grievously hurt?' And oh!
the little tone--half bantering, wholly sympathetic--which rippled
through those words with a melodious sound that sent poor Gilles into
a veritable heaven of ecstasy.
But he did look up, just as he was bidden to do--looked up, and
encountered that tantalizing little mole at such close quarters that
he promptly raised his head, so that his lips might touch it.
Whereupon the mole, the blue eyes, the demure smile, the whole
exquisite face, retreated with lightning rapidity into some obscure
and remote distance, and Gilles, conscious that only gentle pity
would bring them nearer to him again, groaned loudly and once more
closed his eyes.
But this time these outward signs of suffering were greeted with a
mocking little laugh.
'Too late, Messire! You have already betrayed yourself. You are not
so sick as you would have me believe!'
'Sick? No!' he retorted; but made no attempt to move. 'Dead, more
like! and catching my first glimpse of paradise.'
'Fie, Messire!' she exclaimed gaily. 'To make so sure of going
speedily to Heaven!'
'How can I help being sure when angels are present to confirm my
belief?'
'But you are not in Heaven,' she assured him, and smiled on him
archly from out a frame of tender, leafless branches. 'You are in an
arbour in the park, whither I and two of my servants brought you when
you fell into our arms at the postern gate.'
He raised himself upon his elbow, found he could do it without much
pain; then looked about him searchingly and wonderingly. He was
lying on a couch and his head had apparently been resting on a couple
of velvet cushions. All around him the still dormant tendrils of
wild clematis wound in and out of skilfully constructed woodwork.
Overhead, the woodwork was shaped to a dome, and straight in front of
him there stretched out a vista over the park of a straight, grass
walk, bordered with beds of brilliantly coloured tulips and hyacinths
and backed by a row of young limes, on which the baby leaves gleamed
like pale emeralds, whilst far away the graceful pinnacles of the
cathedral stood out like perfect lace-work against the vivid blue of
the sky.
'Well, Messire,' resumed Jacqueline lightly, after awhile, 'are you
convinced now that you are still on earth, and that it was by human
agency that you arrived here, not on angels' wings?'
'No, I am not convinced of that, Madame,' he replied. 'At the same
time, I would dearly like to know how I did come here.'
'Simply enough, Messire. I was taking my usual walk in the park,
when I heard an awful commotion on the other side of the wall. I and
my two servants who were with me hurried to the postern gate, for of
a truth the cries that we heard sounded threatening and ominous. One
of my servants climbed over the shoulders of the other and hoisted
himself to the top of the wall, from whence he saw that a whole crowd
armed with knives and sticks was furiously attacking a single man,
who was standing his ground with his back against the postern gate,
whilst we could all hear quite distinctly the clash of missiles
hurled against the wall. To pull open the gate was the work of a few
seconds, and you, Messire, fell backwards into my--into my servants'
arms.'
Then, as he made no sign, said not a word, only remained quite
still--almost inert--resting on his elbow and gazing on her with eyes
filled with passionate soul-hunger, she added gently:
'You are not in pain, Messire?'
'In sore pain, ma donna,' he replied with a sigh. 'In incurable
pain, I fear me.'
The tone of his voice, the look in his eyes while he said this, made
it impossible for her not to understand. She lowered her eyes for a
moment, for his glance had brought a hot blush to her cheeks. There
was a moment of tense silence in the little arbour--a silence broken
only by the murmur of the breeze through the young twigs of the wild
clematis and the call of a robin in the branches of the limes.
Jacqueline was the first to rouse herself from this strange and sweet
oppression. She gave a quick little sigh and, unable to speak, she
was turning to go away, flying as if by instinct from some insidious
danger which seemed to lurk for her in the wild, tremulous beating of
her heart.
'Jacqueline!'
She had not thought that her name could sound so sweet as it did just
then, when it came to her in a fervent, passionate appeal from the
depths of the fragrant arbour, where awhile ago she and her servants
had laid Messire down to rest. She did not turn her head to look on
him now, but nevertheless paused on the threshold, for her heart was
beating so fast that she felt almost choked, and her knees shook so
that she was forced to cling with one hand to the curtain of young
twigs which hung at the entrance of the arbour.
The next moment he was by her side. She felt that he was near her,
even though she still kept her head resolutely turned away. He put
one knee to the ground and, stooping, kissed the hem of her gown.
And Jacqueline--a mere child where knowledge of the great passion is
concerned--felt that something very great and very mysterious, as
well as very beautiful, had suddenly been revealed to her by this
simple act of homage performed by this one man. She realized all of
a sudden why those few weeks ago, when the mysterious singer with the
mellow voice had sung beneath her window, the whole world had seemed
to her full of beauty and of joy, why during these past long and
weary days while Messire lay sick and she could not see him, that
self-same world became unspeakably drab and ugly. She knew now that,
with his song, the singer had opened the portals of her heart, and
that, unknown to herself, she had let Love creep in there and make
himself a nest, from whence he had alternately tortured her or made
her exquisitely happy. Tears which seared and soothed rose to her
eyes; a stupendous longing for something which she could not quite
grasp, filled her entire soul. And with it all, an infinite sadness
made her heart ache till she could have called out with the pain of
it--a sense of the unattainable, of something perfect and wonderful,
which by a hideous caprice of Fate must for ever remain out of her
reach.
'It can never be, Messire!' was all that she said. The words came
like a cry, straight from her heart--a child's heart, that has not
yet learned to dissemble. And that cry spoke more certainly and more
tangibly than any avowal could have done. In a moment, Gilles was on
his feet, his arms were round her shoulders and his face was buried
in her fragrant hair. And she, unresisting, yielded herself to him,
savoured the sweetness of his caresses, the touch of his lips on her
eyes, her cheeks, her mouth. Her ardent nature, long held in fetters
by convention, responded with all its richness to the insistent call
of the man's passionate love.
'You love me, Jacqueline?' he asked, and looked down into the depths
of those exquisite blue eyes which had captured his soul long ago and
made him their slave until this hour, when they in their turn yielded
entirely to him.
'Verily,' she replied quaintly, and looked shyly into his glowing
face; 'I do believe, in truth, Messire, that I do.'
Let those who can, blame Gilles de Crohin for losing his head after
that, and for promptly forgetting everything that he ought to have
remembered, save the rapture of holding her to his breast. Of a
truth, duty, honour, promises, the Duc d'Anjou and Madame la Reyne,
were as far from his ken just now as is a crawling worm from the
starry firmament above. He was going away to-day--out, out into a
great world, into the unknown, where life could be made anew, where
there would be neither sorrow nor tears, if he could carry this
exquisite woman thither in his arms.
'I cannot let you go, ma donna,' he murmured as he held her closer
and ever closer, and covered her lips, her neck, her throat with
kisses. 'No power on earth can take you from me now that I have you,
that I hold you, my beautiful, exquisite flower. You love me,
Jacqueline?' he asked her for the tenth time, and for the tenth time
she murmured in response: 'I love you!'
Time had ceased to be. The world no longer existed for these two
happy beings who had found one another. There was only Love for
them--Love, pure and holy, and Passion, that makes the world go
round. There was spring in the air, and the scent of awakening life
around them, the fragrance of budding blossom, the call of birds, the
hum of bees--Nature, exquisite, wonderful in her perfect selfishness,
and in her oblivion of all save her own immutable Self.
'You love me, Jacqueline?'
'I love you!'
'Then, in the name of God that made us to love one another,' he
entreated with ever-growing fervour, 'let us forget everything, leave
everything, dare all for the sake of our Love. It can never be, you
say ... everything can be, mignonne; for Love makes everything
possible. Rank, wealth, duty, country, King--what are they but
shadows? Leave them, my flower! Leave them and come to me! Love is
true, love is real! Come with me, Jacqueline, and by the living God
who made you as perfect as you are, by your heavenly blue eyes and
your maddening smile, I swear to you that I will give you such an
infinity of worship that I will make of your life one long, unceasing
rapture.'
She had closed her eyes, drinking in his ardour with her very soul.
Hers was one of those super-natures which, when they give, do so in
the fullest measure. Being a woman, and one nurtured in self-control
and acute sensitiveness, she did not, even at this blissful moment,
lose complete grasp of herself; unlike the man, her passion did not
carry her entirely into the realm of forgetfulness. She yielded to
his kisses, knowing that, as they were the first, so they would be
the last that she would ever savour in the fullness of perfect
ecstasy; that parting--dreary, inevitable, woeful parting--must
follow this present transient happiness. Yet, knowing all that, she
would not forgo the exquisite joy that she felt in yielding, the
exquisite joy, too, that she was giving him. She deliberately
plucked the rich fruit of delight, even though she knew that
inexorable Fate would wrench it from her even before she had tasted
its sweetness to the full.
It was only when Jacqueline, suddenly waking as from a dream and
disengaging herself gently from his arms, said once again, more
resolutely this time: 'It can never be, Messire!' that Gilles in his
turn realized what he had done. He was brought back to earth with
one of those sudden blows of reawakened consciousness which leave a
man stunned and bruised, in a state of quasi-hebetude. For one
supreme moment of his life the gates of an earthly paradise had been
opened for him and he had been granted a peep into such radiant
possibilities that, dazzled and giddy with joy, he had felt within
himself that sublime arrogance which makes light of every obstacle
and is ready to ride rough-shod over the entire world.
But the inexorable 'It can never be!' had struck at the portals of
his consciousness, and even before he had become fully sentient he
saw the grim hand of Fate closing those golden gates before his eyes,
and pointing sternly to the path which led down to earth, left him
once more alone with his dream.
'It can never be!'
He tried to wrestle with Fate, to wrest from cruel hands that
happiness which already was slipping from his grasp.
'Why not?' he cried out defiantly. Then, in a final, agonized
entreaty, he murmured once more, 'Why not?'
Ah! he knew well enough why not! Fool and criminal, to have
forgotten it even for this one brief instant of perfect bliss! Why
not? Ye gods, were there not a thousand reasons why a penniless
soldier of fortune should not dare approach a noble and rich heiress?
and a thousand others why he--Gilles de Crohin--should never have
spoken one word of love to this one woman, who was destined for
another man--and that man his own liege lord. There was a gateless
barrier made up of honour and chivalry and of an oath sworn upon the
cross between his love and Jacqueline de Broyart, which in honour he
should never have attempted to cross.
Consciousness came back to him with a sudden rush, not only the
consciousness of what he had done, but of what he had now to do. Not
all the bitter tears of lifelong remorse would ever succeed in wiping
out the past; but honour demanded that at least the future be kept
unsullied.
A final struggle with temptation that was proving overwhelming, a
final, wholly human, longing to keep and to hold this glorious gift
of God; then the last renunciation as he allowed the loved one to
glide out of his arms like a graceful bird, still a-quiver after this
brief immersion in the torrential wave of his passion. Then, as she
stood now a few paces away from him, with wide, sad eyes deliberately
turned to gaze on the distant sky, he passed his hand across his
forehead, as if with the firm will to clear his brain and chase away
the last vestige of the sweet, insistent dream.
Once more there was silence in the fragrant arbour; but it was the
silence of unspoken sorrow--a silence laden with the portent of an
approaching farewell. Gilles was the first to break it.
'It can never be, ma donna,' he said quietly, his rugged voice still
shaking with emotion, now resolutely held in bondage. 'I know that
well enough. Knew it even at the moment when, in my folly, I first
dared to kiss your gown.'
'I was as much to blame as you, Messire,' she said naïvely, her lips
trembling with suppressed sobs. 'I don't know how it came about,
but...'
'It came about, ma donna,' he rejoined fervently, 'because you are as
perfect as the angels, and God when He fashioned you allowed no human
weakness to mar His adorable work. The avowal which came from your
sweet lips was just like the manna which He gave to the hungry crowd.
I, the poor soldier of fortune, have been made thereby more enviable
than a king.'
'And yet we must part, Messire?' she said firmly, and withal in her
voice that touching note of childlike appeal which for the
unfortunate dweller on the outskirts of paradise was more difficult
to withstand than were a glass of water to one dying of thirst. 'I
do not belong to myself, you know,' she continued, and looked him
once more serenely in the face. 'Ever since my dear brother died I
have been made to understand that my future, my person, belong to my
country--my poor, sorrowing country, who, it seems, hath sore need of
me. I have no right to love, no right to think of mine own
happiness. God alone in His Omniscience knows how you came to fill
my heart, Messire, to the exclusion of every other thought, of every
other duty. It was wrong of me, I know--wrong and unmaidenly. But
the secret of my love would for ever have remained locked in my heart
if I had not learned that you loved me too.'
She made her profession of faith so firmly and earnestly and with
such touching innocence that the hot passion which a while ago was
raging in Gilles' heart was suddenly soothed and purified as if with
the touch of a divine breath. A wonderful peace descended on his
soul: he hardly knew himself, his own turbulent temper, his untamed
and passionate nature, so calm and serene did he suddenly feel.
'Yes, we must part, ma donna,' he said, in a simple, monotonous voice
which he himself scarcely recognized as his own. 'We must each go
our way; you to fulfil the great destiny for which God has created
you and to which your sorrowing country calls you; I to watch from
afar the course of your fortunes, like the poor, starving astrologer
doth watch the course of the stars.'
'From afar?' she said, and her delicate cheeks took on a dull,
lifeless hue. 'Then you will go away?'
'To-day, please God!' he replied.
'But, I--'
'You, ma donna, my beautiful Flower o' the Lily, you will, I pray
Heaven, forget me even as the young, living sapling forgets the
stricken bough which the tempests have laid low.'
She shook her head.
'I will never forget you, Messire. If you go from me to-day I will
never know another happy hour again.'
'May God bless you for saying this! But I have no fear that you will
not be happy. Happiness comes as readily to your call as does a bird
to its mate. You and happiness are one, ma donna. Where you are,
all the joys of earth dwell and flourish.'
'Not when I am alone,' she said, the hot tears welling to her eyes,
her voice shaken with sobs. 'And thoughts of you--lonely and
desolate--will chase all joy from out my life.'
'But you must not think of me at all, ma donna,' he rejoined with
infinite tenderness. 'And when you do, when a swift remembrance of
the poor, rough soldier doth perchance disturb the serenity of your
dreams, do not think of him as either lonely or desolate. I shall
never again in life be lonely--never again be desolate. I am now
rich beyond the dreams of men, rich with the boundless wealth of
unforgettable memories.'
'You talk so readily of forgetting,' she said sadly. 'Will you find
it so easy, Messire?'
'Look at me, ma donna, and read the answer to your question in mine
eyes.'
She looked up at him, with that shy and demure glance which rendered
her so adorable and so winning, and in his face she saw so much
misery, such unspeakable sorrow that her heart was seized with a
terrible ache. The sobs which were choking her could no longer be
suppressed. She stuffed her tiny handkerchief into her mouth to stop
herself from crying out aloud, and feeling giddy and faint, she sank
on to a pile of cushions close by and buried her face in her hands,
letting her tears flow freely at last, since she was not ashamed of
the intensity of her grief.
Gilles could have dashed his head against the nearest tree-trunk, so
enraged was he with himself, so humiliated at his own weakness. How
deeply did he regret now that de Landas' sword had not ended his
miserable life, before he had brought sorrow and tears to this woman
whom he worshipped. What right had he to disturb her peace of mind?
What right to stir to the very depths of her fine nature those strong
passions which, but for his clumsy touch, might for ever have
remained dormant?
And through it all was the sense of his own baseness, which had come
upon him with a rush--his treachery to Madame la Reyne, his falseness
to his sworn oath. Love for this beautiful woman had swept him off
his feet, caught him at a weak and unguarded moment and left him now
covered with humiliation and self-reproach, an object of hatred to
himself, for ever in future to be haunted by the recurrent vision of
the loved one's face bathed in tears and by the sound of those
harrowing sobs which would until the end of time rend his soul with
unutterable anguish.
'Would to God we had never met!' he murmured fervently.
And she had sufficient courage, sufficient strength, to smile up at
him through her tears, murmuring with enchanting simplicity:
'Would to God we had not to part.'
What else could he do but fall on his knees in mute adoration, and
with the final, heartbroken farewell dying upon his lips? He stooped
low until his head nearly touched the ground. Her small foot in its
velvet shoe peeped just beneath the hem of her gown, and with a last
act of humble adoration, he pressed his lips upon its tip.
'Farewell, my adored one,' he said softly, as he straightened out his
tall, massive figure once more. 'With my heart and my soul I worship
you now and for all time. Even though I may never again look upon
your loveliness, the memory of it will haunt me until the hour of
death, when my spirit--free to roam the universe--will fly to you as
surely as doth the swallow to its mate. And if in the future,' he
added with solemn earnestness, 'aught should occur to render me
odious in your sight, then I pray you on bended knees and in the name
of this past unforgettable hour, to remember that, whatever else I
may have done that was unworthy and base, my love for you has been as
pure and sacred as is the love of the lark for the sun.'
And, before she could reply, he was gone. She watched his tall
figure striding rapidly away along the grass walk, until he became a
mere speck upon the shimmering distance beyond. Soon he disappeared
from view altogether, and Jacqueline was left alone with memory.