If passion reveals the God in us, it was a wise policy of the Father
God which fettered it with restrictions, lest, in aspiring to achieve
angels, we should repeople chaos with abortions. Mercifully the
streets and the trains, eating and drinking, business and the social
duties, are always with us, to appropriate to themselves ninety-nine
hundredths of our nervous energy: what remains for our divinity, the
odd fiery fraction, is quite enough for all reasonably creative
purposes. The poeticules of our latest movement are all for revolt
against this state of things; they glory, openly and personally, in
the passion that burns and blisters, which is, after all, I suppose,
only their modern euphemism for venery in its vulgarest and most
penalising form. That is to exalt unclean gods with a vengeance, and,
though I do not go with the orthodox Jehovah in most things, I could
follow him gratefully in any relentless campaign he instituted against
these little wormy monstrosities of a new Gomorrah. The fact that most
of them probably are callow and intellectually embryonic, proves
nothing so much as the weak indulgence of an age which allows such
undeveloped juvenilities to pipe their pretentious eroticisms
unsmacked. When Art claims the right to discover and worship beauty in
filthy disease, or in the iridescent scums over human corruption, it
is time that Art was put away by its friends in an asylum for the
neuroticly impossible. So far as I can make out from the published
evidences, that asylum should need at the present moment considerable
enlargement.
There is, in fact, no beauty, and there never can be, in incontinence;
the point is too self-evident to need labouring. Restraint is the
quality most to be studied in aiming at perfection of form, and to
achieve it one must be content to concentrate on the hundredth
fraction. Spiritually and materially, that man will find the highest
happiness who is satisfied to yield the bulk of his being to the
workaday and unemotional.
Morning lowered the pride of my own starry exaltation, and found me
with a normal pulse and a brain swept clean as a housemaid’s
step--with a deep thankfulness, moreover, that I was reawaking to a
day of untroubled commonplace, and not to one of unquiet, responsible
remorse. In action I looked to dissipate the last fumes of an
intoxication, whose memory, though it lingered without nausea, was yet
no proof against that glad consciousness of moral security. I whistled
as I dressed.
Fifine did not come down to breakfast; and I was off with my friends
before she had appeared. I knocked at her door, bidding her to expect
me back about midday, when I should hope to have finished my task, and
she answered “Very well”--coldly, I thought, and in a manner which I
was relieved, I told myself, to recognise for one of reassuring
indifference.
However, she was punctual to her appointment; and I found her awaiting
me in the coffee-room, when I came in--a little late myself--after
seeing the ladies off to the station.
“Well, they are gone,” I said. “And now for relaxation and refreshment
following duty.”
She shot a quick glance at me; but relapsed immediately into the
rather apathetic attitude with which she had accepted my reappearance.
She looked a little pale and dark-eyed; but I was resolute to make no
comment thereon, nor to imply in any way an understanding sympathy
with her state. I expressed my contrition for my unpunctuality, and
that was all.
“It doesn’t matter in the least,” she said. “I don’t think I am very
hungry.”
“Nonsense,” I answered. “You _must_ eat, after that--” I checked
myself, on the brink of the undesired subject. “Besides,” I said, “we
have this journey before us, and with only a problematic meal at the
end of it. I don’t build implicitly on the resources of the place we
are going to--unless it has altered considerably since my time.”
“Very well,” she said impassively: “I will try.”
“How have you amused yourself during my absence?” I asked.
“I went to the Muséon Arleten with M. Cabarus,” she answered in an
indifferent voice: “we stayed there till it was time for him to go.”
“To go! What, has he actually taken his departure?”
“Yes--for les Baux. He went in a hired automobile.”
I sat back in my chair, and looked her fixedly in the face.
“Did you tell him _we_ were going there?”
“Yes, I told him.”
I said no more. Presently an uncontrollable fit of laughter began to
shake me. It was too ridiculous. Was I for evermore to be haunted by
this incubus with the inflated paunch and disordered head? But the
moral was no less obvious than the absurdity--I could not shut my eyes
to the fact. I had been crushing under in myself a sentiment which had
no authority for existing. Perhaps, even, she had known all the time
whither he was bound, and had manœuvred so as to induce me to follow
in his footsteps. I could not quite believe that; but anyhow I felt
myself handsomely made a fool of, and the thought of my own
discomfiture appealed irresistibly to my sense of humour. One thing
was now certain, that I might quit my conscience of any feeling of
regret for my own harshness or irresponsiveness.
Fifine looked a little astonished over my hilarious reception of her
thunderbolt; but she said nothing, and we finished our lunch almost in
silence.
“Now,” said I, when all was done: “what time did you say our train
started? You looked it out, didn’t you, as I asked you.”
“Yes,” she said. “It was at three-twenty.”
“Then we will pay our bill, collect our traps, and, by your leave,
start leisurely for the station.”
All of which we did, arriving at the little terminus in ample time. It
was somewhat disconcerting, however, to find the platform empty, the
office closed, and no sign whatever of train or passengers.
“This is odd,” I said; but presently sighting a porter in the
distance, I went to enquire of him. The result was illuminating.
“What time did you tell me our train went?” I asked Fifine, as I
rejoined her.
“At three-twenty,” she repeated. “I copied it down, and can show you.”
She showed it me, in fact--a little note in pencil on a scrap of
paper.
“Read it, please,” I said.
She obeyed--“Thirteen-twenty”--and stopped. “O--o!” she exclaimed--a
prolonged interjection of dismay.
“Exactly,” I said. “Thirteen-twenty is one-twenty, goose. There is not
another train for just two hours.”
She stood looking up at me. Her lower lip went down, positively like a
dear pitiful baby’s in deprecation of the expected and well-merited
scolding.
“O, Felix,” she said. “I’m _so_ sorry!”
I could have shaken her; I could have laughed; I could have snatched
her to my heart and kissed her--it was so moving, after all, to see
this change in her from that one-time confident assurance to
propitiation and entreaty. In these latter days all her precocious
dictatorialness seemed to have deserted her; and yet she did not know
that I knew what I knew; to all intents and purposes she still figured
to herself for a free agent. It was Carabas, the eternal Carabas, who
had wrought the sad confusion.
“Never mind,” I said. “It will make us rather late, and it will be a
little dull waiting; but we must kill the time as we can, and be glad
it is no worse.”
She thanked me for my forbearance, though with only a pathetic look.
“Wouldn’t you like to go back into the town,” she said, “while I wait
here for you? Please do. I shan’t mind, and it will make me feel less
guilty.”
“Very well,” I answered, after a moment’s reflection--“if you are sure
you won’t mind.”
“Quite sure,” she replied; and so I left her.
I knew why I had acquiesced; it was from policy, policy--I put it
firmly to myself. It was from policy, also, no doubt, that I wandered
no further than to the main platform--to which the other was related
but locally--where I smoked and loitered aimlessly, acutely conscious
all the time of my self-exile, obstinate to maintain it, yet never
losing jealous mental sight of the forlorn figure awaiting my return a
short stone’s-throw away. But I prevailed against inclination, even to
the end, and did not return to Fifine until the train was actually in
the station.
It was well past five when we started, and already there was an
ominous drooping about the lids of the sky. Three-quarters of an
hour’s run, with the stops at an _halte_ or two and the little midway
station of Fontvieille, would surely carry us into something deeper
than twilight at Paradou, which was where we had to alight for our
final destination. I had not before approached les Baux from this
quarter, and was ignorant as to its distance from Paradou, the
character of the way, and the possibility of procuring a vehicle of
some sort. However, let come what would; we were in for it.
It was a wild little train, a mere giddy colt of a thing, which
rattled us through scenery for ever growing more into communion with
its untamed self--great stretches of rock-strewn heather, and
clattering gullies, and vast ramparts of hill which continually rose
about us more savage and menacing. We could see the white road
creeping up the valley, as though stealthily pursuing us, now touching
us with a coil and gliding swiftly from the contact, now receding to
worm itself through purple thickets, whence it would reappear far
ahead, wheeling as if to strike us as we passed. The light sank from
the sky, like blood from a dying face; the country grew featureless
first, and then slowly indistinguishable; once through the little
sparkling oasis of Fontvieille, we found ourselves committed without
reserve to uncompromising darkness. Still there was a twenty minutes
run before us, and I found myself anxiously peering by and by for some
sign of twinkling reassurance amidst the glooms ahead. There had been
carriages at Fontvieille; should we find their like at
Paradou-les-Baux? And while I was still peering, the train slowed
down, stopped, and we were at the station.
It seemed a mere isolated platform in an otherwise lightless
desolation. We were the only passengers who got out. With a rather
sinking heart, I took, after the train had started on its way again,
the solitary official--who seemed to combine in himself the parts of
stationmaster, ticket-collector, signalman and porter--into my
confidence.
“The distance to les Baux, Monsieur?”
“By road,” he answered brusquely, “three miles.”
“An easy road?”
“But far from it. For yourself difficult; for Madame impossible.”
That was discomforting; but it was not accurate. The road, as we
discovered next day, was a carriage road and easily distinguishable,
though decidedly steep.
“A voiture?” I suggested.
The stationmaster shrugged his shoulders, and called to an urchin, who
was hanging about by the platform wicket. A brief colloquy ensued
between the two as to the probability of Charloun’s cart being
available. Finally, in order to ascertain, the boy ran down the hill,
on which the station was situated, into lower gulfs of blackness. He
was absent ten or fifteen minutes, when he re-appeared with the
information that there was no possibility of our procuring a trap of
any sort whatever.
“A guide, possibly?” I asked.
It was certain, was the answer, that no one could be found at this
time of night, and the day’s labour over, to put himself to the
trouble.
“This is pleasant,” I said to Fifine; and turned again to the
stationmaster:--
“There is, without question, an inn?”
O, yes, there was an inn, it appeared, one inn, but hardly of a
quality to appeal to travellers of our distinction. It was merely, in
short, a cabaret. “Still, if Monsieur and Madame----”
Monsieur and Madame held a short counsel of desperation, and
agreed--if one may apply the term to Madame’s passive
acquiescence--that it was a question of the undesirable inn or
nothing.
“Conduct us to it,” I said to the boy, “and you shall earn the fifty
centimes which travellers of distinction are accustomed to bestow upon
the deserving.”
He led off, and we followed--down the gulf-like hill. There were no
stars, and the wind blew upon us coldly.
“I’m afraid,” I said, “that there’s no help for it, Fifine. You’ll
have to resign yourself to being parted from your troubadour for a few
hours.”
She did not answer for a little; and then she looked suddenly up at
me.
“How cruel you are,” she said. “I never should have thought it of you
once.”
There was an odd catch in her voice; but she commanded it, and spoke
clearly and precisely. Thereafter we walked in silence--a surprised,
half-vindictive one on my part. Not that I was wrathful with Fifine,
but with Fate. However unexceptionable my motives, it would not allow
me, it seemed, the unequivocal expression of them, but must always be
impelling me to say the provocative thing when I had meant only the
playful. At least, so I told myself; but then one is not always quite
honest in one’s self-confidences. It is extraordinary how gullible we
can be when our own inclinations prompt us to mischief.
At the bottom of the hill we came to a crossroad, turning to the right
along which we presently sighted the yellow end wall of a country
caravansary, on which was emblazoned the magnificent legend “Grand
Café Bellin.” It was, in truth, as we discovered on reaching it, a
humble enough hostelry, standing in an arid little compound, with a
row of plane trees before its windows; but it offered shelter, at
least, and possibly some hope of refreshment. We knocked on the door,
and a formidable cross-eyed woman opened and demanded our business.
At first it was all _impossible_; the cooking was done with and the
fire down; but finally she was prevailed on to admit us grudgingly;
and we were shewn through a reeking little kitchen--which opened
straight upon the compound, and where, it seemed, the whole staring
household was assembled--into a great barn of a room, furnished with
bare benches and tables, at which were seated a number of boors, quite
_à l’hollandais_, only drinking hot coffee in lieu of beer, and
playing dominoes and cards with greasy little packs. There in a corner
we sat, watching the curious scene, and awaiting meekly the moment
when it should please the high-handed landlady to serve us the
wherewithal for a meal. It came, and sooner and ampler than we had
dared to hope--thin soup, a mess of mutton bones, the usual tough
smoked cutlets, the usual rancid wine; but we were hungry and
thankful, and remote from a critical mood. We blessed providence and
ate; and afterwards sought to ruminate at ease, watching the coming
and going, the rough but mannerly company, the animated expressions
and the sober recreations. There was a billiard table at the further
end of the long room; and presently I went and challenged to a game on
it a young quarryman who was idly knocking the balls about. He was
unwashed and heavy-booted; the lines of his common face and coarse
clothes were filled thick with the dust of his labour; but he accepted
with perfect courtesy--and gave me a complete thrashing into the
bargain, his strokes being as deft and resourceful with a cue as they
must have been violently destructive with a pick. We had a _petit
verre_ together afterwards--the only palatable cheap drink in
Provence--and parted very good friends. I went back to Fifine, and
found her sitting quite patient, but with a strained tired look in her
eyes.
“It is bed for you, by your leave,” I said. “Shall I call the girl and
get her to show you up to your room?”
“I think,” she answered, “I--I will not go till you do, Felix.”
“Why not, Fifine?”
“I don’t know. I would rather not.”
“You are nervous, little goose. These rough surroundings frighten you;
and you are recalling terrible tales of things done to belated
travellers in lonely inns. Are you not?”
She smiled faintly, but did not answer.
“Believe me,” I said; “you are safer here than you would be in the
Hôtel Ritz, and far less likely to meet with impertinences. But, of
course, if you feel so, I will come. You ought, it is very certain, to
be in your bed.”
“It is a shame to victimise you so. I am very sorry, Felix. I have
been trying to fight it down; but I can’t--everything is so wild and
strange.”
“Of course. Poor child!”
I caught up the rücksack, went to the door, summoned the little
solemn-eyed Provençale who had waited on us, and bade her conduct us
to our rooms. She went before, carrying a lighted candle, up a flight
of stairs as steep and narrow as a ladder, and ushered us at the top
into a dim windy chamber, sparely littered with furniture, whence
opened a couple of doors into two box-like little cubicles, or
compartments--our bedrooms. Each contained a bed, a tiny washstand,
one chair, and a minute chest of drawers with a scrap of looking-glass
on it. They were dingy, the discoloured paper was peeling from the
walls, the boards were bare; but, wonder of wonders, each boasted a
single switch and electric light. They were more civilized in Paradou
than we had opined, and I hoped that Fifine’s nerves would take
comfort from that reassurance. I made her choose her room, and
deposited in it, as was our custom, the rücksack, having first
removed from it my own necessities. Then I bade her good-night, and
told her to sleep in peace and security, seeing my own cubicle was
contiguous, and the wall between no thicker than match-boxes.
“If you whisper, I shall hear you,” I said. “Call to me, if anything
frightens you.”
She promised, and I went--went perforce, though the look in her face
made me feel as though I were abandoning a scared child to its
night-terrors. There was a mosquito blind to the window in my room,
and, raising it, I saw that it opened upon the row of plane trees, and
the little compound faintly illuminated by the light from the
common-room below. All else and around was dense obscurity--only that
little spectral oasis shone isolated in a desert of night.
I sat there long, smoking and meditating. Now and again the door
underneath would swing and bang, and a figure would cross the paddock
of light and disappear into the glooms beyond. Gradually all sounds in
the house ceased; and presently, after a wink or two, the light itself
shrunk and was gone. Only still the faintest luminosity, proceeding
from somewhere undetected, lingered in my neighbourhood. It took me a
minute to discover that it shone through the close web of Fifine’s
mosquito blind. So she was awake still; or slept with her light up.
And almost immediately I heard a little stifled call.
“Felix!”
“What is it, m’amie.”
“O, do come to me! There is something horrible!”
I laughed, as I got to my feet; then set my teeth, with a groan, as I
softly slipped off my shoes.
“All right,” I whispered back; “I am coming.”
I opened noiselessly one door after the other, stepping like a
panic-stricken thief. She was sitting up in bed, her hair coiling
about her temples, the sheet clutched to her chin by her two
convulsive hands. Her eyes met mine, piteous, deprecating, imploring.
“What is it?” I said.
“There!” She nodded her head frantically, looking beyond me at the
wall. I turned; and saw a slowly-travelling centipede--truly a
monstrum horrendum. It was about an inch and a half long, its body was
encased in overlapping dusky-red scales, and its innumerable legs,
unlike the brief pedicles of its more northern brethren, were as long
as a house-spider’s, but like fine hairs. I seized up one of Fifine’s
shoes that stood outside the door, flattened out the visitor with it,
and he fell defunct.
“O, what was it?” She shivered. “Have you killed it?”
“As dead as Charity,” I assured her. “It was just a shield-bearing
centipede, Fifine. Nothing worse. You find them about here.”
“Will another come?”
“I should think it unlikely.”
“Felix--will you--will you sit by me till I go to sleep?”
“I ought not to, you know, m’amie.”
“I will shut my eyes; I will not speak to you--not one word. Felix, I
am very lonely and miserable.”
“Hush, child. Close your eyes, then. I will stay only on condition
that you are absolutely true to your promise.”
She lay down at once, turning from me to obey. I just pushed to the
door without latching it, and went and sat as far from her as
possible. It was a strange vigil that followed; and yet I never once
felt chill throughout it. The blood was always throbbing through my
veins like a living fire; little reels of vertigo seemed to take me
from time to time, half blissful, half delirious. When my thoughts
grew masterful, my soul grew weak; and in those kind and pitiful moods
I had to force myself to keep my place, lest a single movement should
precipitate a tragedy. But I could not hide the truth from myself any
longer. We must go home, I said to my suffering conscience: we must
end it and go home. Did she guess the torture in my mind--had she even
invited it? In that case I had a formidable task before me indeed.
I don’t know when she slept at last; probably the ferment in her
brain, coupled with her consciousness of my presence, kept her long
awake. That she could sleep at all, trustful in that consciousness
like a child, was sufficiently moving to me. And somewhere in the
little hours she _did_ sleep: I knew it, when it came, by the soft
regularity of her breathing; and thereupon I rose, and padding it like
a burglar, went away from her room into my own. Yet I could not pass
her bed, I had not that self-command, but I must pause by it for one
moment to look in her dear unconscious face. There was the tenderest
flush upon the upturned cheek; the lips were the least bit parted; to
look on innocent sleep is to know the bud before the flower, the
locked secret, the loveliness nearest heaven. God forgive me!