ANTI-CLIMAX
After Anne dropped Vittorio at his hotel blankness fell upon her; the
limitless blankness of a solitary planet whirling in space. A loneliness
devastating as the fear of death. What a strange, uncompanioned thing
the soul was. How horribly alone. How impossible for it to merge with
another.
Not a weeping woman, Anne was conscious of an intolerable ache in her
throat, an intolerable emptiness in the heart. She and Vittorio had
parted once again, and this time it had hurt, as if her very flesh had
been riven apart. And yet, so alone is the soul, so dumb in its
self-expression, that the short drive had appeared neither tragic nor
momentous. Merely unfruitful and incomplete.
A malaise had lain upon them from the very beginning. A creeping
paralysis had bound their tongues to trivialities, their souls to
silence and constraint. And yet Anne felt as if neither of them would
ever forget this night. Nor how beautiful the park had looked, like a
scene in a Russian opera, with the snow blossoming upon the trees like
gigantic flowers. Skyscrapers, luminous against the heavens, impregnable
castles of supermen, had flung a challenge into space. Their
diamond-studded windows were more brilliant than the stars.
But inside the car it had been warm, even cozy. Vittorio's shoulder had
brushed against hers. His profile only half visible, had leaned towards
her. The scent of his cigarettes still lingered upon the air with a hint
of comfort. She stretched out her hand and touched the place where he
had sat. It was still warm. Some of his vitality remained as if to
console her. He had actually sat there a few moments ago in the flesh.
And now there was only a vague hint of warmth,--and emptiness. How could
a thing be one moment, and yet not only vanish the next, but even seem
as if it had never existed? Was it possible that nothing was real, after
all? How strange a thing is the fluidity of time. The past flowed into
the present. The present welled into the future, and swept onwards like
a mighty river, towards the ocean of eternity, whence came its source.
Encircling the globe in its rushing current, it carried one upon its
bosom, helpless but protesting from the vast gray sea of birth to the
vast gray sea of death, which in the end are one and the same.
What a mystery it all was, a problem. Heavy with weariness, Anne's smile
showed drearily from beneath a passing arc light. Protest, rebellion?
What was the use of either, if one were only a leaf upon the swirl of
heavy waters? To stay the flow for the fraction of a second was an
impossibility denied even to the gods.
Things were like that. A little while ago she and Vittorio had sat here,
side by side, and uttered trivialities. The moment was gone forever and
he with it. Carried upon it as if by a substance more powerful than
flesh and blood. And now that he was no longer there, that he no longer
existed In time, it seemed, she could think of a thousand things that
they might have said to each other.
As it was, she scarcely remembered that they had exchanged more than a
few phrases. Yet of course that could have been hardly possible. She
recalled asking him how he had enjoyed his stay in Mexico, and scarcely
listening for the reply. She had a vague impression that he had found it
interesting. He had spoken at some length about a friend of his, a
Spaniard, whose diggings he had visited near Mexico City, where the
remains of an ancient civilization, entirely concealed by lava, were in
the process of discovery. Bodies had been found, almost perfectly
preserved in the positions in which the fiery death had caught them. The
very utensils in their hands were unbroken. Some of the bodies were
being placed in glass cases, to be exhibited in the Museum in Mexico
City. Anne had laughed foolishly at this point, making some banal remark
about how embarrassing it must have been for the poor creatures, as if
one were caught with one's hair in curl-papers.
But her ridiculous laughter had helped, if only momentarily, to break
through the crust of constraint which lay upon them both like the
coating of lava upon the little city he was telling her of. Vittorio had
turned to her abruptly, and asked if she were happy. The tremor in his
voice had startled her.
"Is any one ever happy?" she had evaded.
But he had insisted upon knowing the truth.
"For God's sake, tell me Anne. It can't hurt me half as much as to feel
that you are suffering or have made a frightful mistake. I don't think I
could quite bear that!"
"I suppose I am happy," her reply had been somewhat uncertain. "I didn't
expect to be happy, you know."
But her answer had not pleased him. Perhaps he had considered it both
priggish and insincere. For his voice was incredulous and slightly
mocking as he had proceeded.
"Oh, Anne, admit it. You are madly in love with him? What woman wouldn't
be? He is a genius. This evening proved that if nothing else. As I
listened to him, chills coursed up my spine. Chills of admiration, and
yes, I might as well own up to it, chills of hatred and of jealousy. I
am a man, and I suffered. He is too beautiful, Anne. He reminds me of a
small statuette I once dug up near Messina, and which was since
destroyed in the earthquake. Of course you love him, Anne. It goes
without saying. And I prefer to have you honest about it."
His tone had both distressed and annoyed her. Why did men always take
things for granted? Even Vittorio, who had known her for the last ten
years could not seem to understand the many-faceted urge which impelled
her actions.
"But Vittorio, I don't think I do love him," she had remonstrated
patiently. "That is, I'm not in love with him. He is really more like a
child than a man in some ways. A fascinating, precocious child, of
course, but sometimes a very naughty one!"
And then she was sorry to have admitted so much, for she sensed that her
words had resounded upon Vittorio's heart like a blow.
"Not that he's not good to me," she hastened to add, impelled by pride
and pity. "A bit difficult at times, because he knows that he cannot
make me his wife. But I don't really mind. For I'm so sorry for him."
The rest of the drive had proceeded in stark silence, punctuated at
intervals by those scattered inanities by which one strives to cover the
nakedness of the soul.
As he sat beside her to-night, Anne surmised the torture that Vittorio
had undergone. Her knowledge of his character was founded upon years of
comradeship. A proud man, it must have been sheer agony for him to
realize her anomalous position. To feel that she had been content to
take second best when he had offered her his all so many times and been
rejected. And yet although it was inevitable that he should suffer, not
once had he made her feel any lessening of his respect, or even of his
love. He had understood so much better than most men the impulse of pity
that lay back of her surrender. He had seemed to comprehend, too, the
temporal quality of it all. Anne knew that if she would leave Alexis and
go to Vittorio some day he would not only consider her as unsmirched as
before, but possibly better for the experience. He was unique among men
in that he realized the sacrificial quality of her action. The only
thing that he would not forgive would be hypocrisy. Of that she was
aware, to her despair. For it was this very thing that had severed them
like a sword when they parted. Vittorio believed that out of some motive
of pity, and possibly of modesty, Anne was deceiving him about her
feeling for Alexis. She knew he believed this and yet she was as
powerless to undeceive him as she was to take up the imaginary sword
that lay between them and thrust it into her living breast. Oh, why had
she not obeyed her instinct for flight, and avoided this perilous
encounter? What a tragedy of errors they had all drifted into. What a
farce it was. A trick of the ironical gods who dig colossal fingers into
one's ribs and expect one to laugh like a babe being tickled. Why had
Vittorio returned to-night of all nights? To-night when she had been
riding upon the pinnacle? Why had their eyes encountered in that
shattering glance, which had flung her once more into the abyss of doubt
and fear? She had felt so exultant in Alexis' triumph. So eager to pour
renewed radiance upon his victory and his fatigue. And now the desire
had completely departed, sucked into the mud of anti-climax.
But this mood was not only foolish, but dangerous. To-night was big with
significance. She must retain the glamor at all costs. To-night belonged
to Alexis. It was his triumph and re-entry into his birthright. Upon it,
his genius had emerged, new-born and greater than ever before, as if in
temporary recoil it had acquired impetus. Yes, to-night was Alexis' and
hers, for was it not her love that had re-created him? Was not his
inspiration begotten of their passion as truly as if it had been a child
of flesh and blood? No, Alexis must never suspect the still-born quality
of her joy. Nor that she was relying upon his living blaze to rekindle
her own flame.
To-night had a special significance too, in the fact that she was
permitting him to come to her in her own house for the first time since
they had become lovers. Fear that the servants, those ancient
slave-drivers of convention, might talk, had hitherto rendered her
cautious. But this was a special occasion for which she had decided to
break all rules. It would have been intolerable not to have rejoiced
together to-night. And sacrilege to have done so in public. Even now she
had been discreet and arranged for most of her household to be out.
Regina alone, had prepared the little supper, which was to be served
before the fire in the upstairs sitting-room. Regina, who would have
returned from the concert herself, and who had probably shed tears of
joy over Alexis' triumph. Dear old Regina of the keen eyes and wise
heart, who, suspecting all, had never let fall a hint or a reproach.
Poor Regina, who had not permitted herself to speak of the Marchese
since his departure, and whose plucky spirit was, as Anne knew, heavy
with nostalgia for Florence and the beloved villa.