The woman who had been confined was moved with exquisite care into the
next room, which she had occupied previously. It was larger and more
comfortable.
They cleaned the room from top to bottom, and I saw Anna and Philip
seated in the room again.
"Take care, Philip," Anna was saying, "you do not understand the
Christian religion. You really do not know /exactly/ what it is. You
speak of it," she added, with a smile, "as women speak of men, or as
men when they try to explain women. Its fundamental element is love.
It is a covenant of love between human beings who instinctively detest
one another. It is also a wealth of love in our hearts to which we
respond naturally when we are little children. Later all our
tenderness is added to it bit by bit, like treasure to treasure. It is
a law of outpouring to which we give ourselves up, and it is the source
of that outpouring. It is life, it is almost a work, it is almost a
human being."
"But, my dear Anna, that is not the Christian religion. That is you."
. . . . .
In the middle of the night, I heard talking through the partition. I
struggled with my sleepiness and got up.
The man was alone, in bed. A lamp was burning dimly. He was asleep
and talking in his sleep.
He smiled and said "No!" three times with growing ecstasy. Then his
smile at the vision he saw faded away. For a moment his face remained
set, as if he were waiting, then he looked terrified, and his mouth
opened. "Anna! Ah, ah!--Ah, ah!" he cried through gaping lips. At this
he awoke and rolled his eyes. He sighed and quieted down. He sat up
in bed, still struck and terrified by what had passed through his mind
a few seconds before.
He looked round at everything to calm himself and banish his nightmare
completely. The familiar sight of the room, with the lamp, so wise and
motionless, enthroned in the middle, reassured him. It was balm to
this man who had just seen what does not exist, who had just smiled at
phantoms and touched them, who had just been mad.
. . . . .
I rose the next morning, all broken up. I was restless. I had a
severe headache. My eyes were bloodshot. When I looked at them in the
mirror, it was as if I saw them through a veil of blood.
When I was alone, free from the visions and scenes to which I devoted
my life, all kinds of worries assailed me--worry about my position,
which I was risking, worry about the steps I ought to be taking and yet
was not taking, worry over myself that I was so intent upon casting off
all my obligations and postponing them, and repudiating my wage-earning
lot, by which I was destined to be held fast in the slow wheelwork of
office routine.
I was also worried by all kinds of minutiæ, annoying because they kept
cropping up every minute--not make any noise, not light a light when the
Room was dark, hide myself, and hide myself all the time. One evening
I got a fit of coughing while listening at the hole. I snatched up my
pillow and buried my head in it to keep the sound from coming out of my
mouth.
Everything seemed to be in a league to avenge itself upon me for I did
not know what. I felt as though I should not be able to hold out much
longer. Nevertheless, I made up my mind to keep on looking as long as
my health and my courage lasted. It might be bad for me, but it was my
duty.
. . . . .
The man was sinking. Death was evidently in the house.
It was quite late in the evening. They were sitting at the table
opposite each other.
I knew their marriage had taken place that afternoon, and that its
purpose had been only to solemnise their approaching farewell. Some
white blossoms, lilies and azaleas, were strewn on the table, the
mantelpiece, and one armchair. He was fading away like those cut
flowers.
"We are married," he said. "You are my wife. You are my wife, Anna!"
It was for the sweetness of saying, "You are my wife," that he had so
longed. Nothing more. But he felt so poor, with his few days of life,
that it was complete happiness to him.
He looked at her, and she lifted her eyes to him--to him who adored her
sisterly tenderness--she who had become devoted to his adoration. What
infinite emotion lay hidden in these two silences, which faced each
other in a kind of embrace; in the double silence of these two human
beings, who, I had observed, never touched each other, not even with
the tips of their fingers.
The girl lifted her head, and said, in an unsteady voice:
"It is late. I am going to sleep."
She got up. The lamp, which she set on the mantelpiece, lit up the
room.
She trembled. She seemed to be in a dream and not to know how to yield
to the dream. Then she raised her arm and took the pins out of her
hair. It fell down her back and looked, in the night, as if it were
lit by the setting sun.
The man made a sudden movement and looked at her in surprise. Not a
word.
She removed a gold brooch from the top of her blouse, and a bit of her
bosom appeared.
"What are you doing, Anna, what are you doing?"
"Why, undressing."
She wanted to say this in a natural voice, but had not succeeded. He
replied with an inarticulate exclamation, a cry from his heart, which
was touched to the quick. Stupefaction, desperate regret, and also the
flash of an inconceivable hope agitated him, oppressed him.
"You are my husband."
"Oh," he said, "you know I am nothing." He spoke feebly in a tragic
tone. "Married for form's sake," he went on, stammering out
fragmentary, incoherent phrases. "I knew it, I knew it--formality--our
conventions--"
She stopped, with her hand hesitating on her blouse like a flower, and
said:
"You are my husband. It is your right."
He made a faint gesture of denial. She quickly corrected herself.
"No, no, it is not your right. I want to do it."
I began to understand how kind she was trying to be. She wished to
give this man, this poor man who was sinking at her feet, a reward that
was worthy of her. She wanted to bestow upon him the gift of the sight
of her body.
But the thing was harder than the mere bestowal of a gift. It must not
look like the mere payment of a debt. He would not have consented to
that. She must make him believe it was a voluntary wifely act, a
willing caress. She must conceal her suffering and repugnance like a
vice. Feeling the difficulty of giving this delicate shade to her
sacrifice, she was afraid of herself.
"No, Anna--dear Anna--think--" He was going to say, "Think of Michel,"
but he did not have the strength at that moment to use this one
decisive argument, and only murmured, "You, you!"
"I want to do it," she repeated.
"But I do not want you to. No, no."
He said this in a weaker voice now, overcome by love. Through
instinctive nobility, he covered his eyes with his hand, but gradually
his hand surrendered and dropped.
She continued to undress, with uncertain movements that showed she
hardly knew what she was doing. She took off her black waist, and her
bust emerged like the day. When the light shone on her she quivered
and crossed her shining arms over her chest. Then she started to
unhook the belt of her skirt, her arms curved, her reddened face bent
down and her lips tightly compressed, as if she had nothing in mind but
the unhooking of her skirt. It dropped to the ground and she stepped
out of it with a soft rustle, like the sound the wind makes in a leafy
garden.
She leaned against the mantelpiece. Her movements were large,
majestic, beautiful, yet dainty and feminine. She pulled off her
stockings. Her legs were round and large and smooth as in a statue of
Michael Angelo's.
She shivered and stopped, overcome by repugnance.
"I feel a little cold," she said in explanation and went on undressing,
revealing her great modesty in violating it.
"Holy Virgin!" the man breathed in a whisper, so as not to frighten
her.
. . . . .
I have never seen a woman so radiantly beautiful. I had never dreamed
of beauty like it. The very first day, her face had struck me by its
regularity and unusual charm, and her tall figure--taller than myself--
had seemed opulent, yet delicate, but I had never believed in such
splendid perfection of form.
In her superhuman proportions she was like some Eve in grand religious
frescoes. Big, soft and supple, broad-shouldered, with a full
beautiful bosom, small feet, and tapering limbs.
In a dreamy voice, going still further in the bestowal of her supreme
gift, she said:
"No one"--she stressed these words with an emphasis amounting to the
mention of a certain name--"/no one/--listen--no one, no matter what
happens, will ever know what I have just done."
And now she, the giver of a gift, knelt--knelt to her adorer who was
prostrated before her like a victim. Her shining knees touched the
cheap common carpet. Her chastity clothed her like a beautiful
garment. She murmured broken words of gratitude, as though she felt
that what she was doing was higher than her duty and more beautiful,
and that it glorified her.
. . . . .
After she dressed and left the room without their having dared to say
anything to each other, I wavered between two doubts. Was she right,
or was she wrong? I saw the man cry and I heard him mutter:
"Now I shall not be able to die."