They suffered, both of them, as they stood side by side; and they
thought with terror of a greater agony which awaited them, well known
and far more cruel--the horrible torture with which their nocturnal
imaginations would rend their defenceless souls.
"If you like, I will remain with you to-night," said Hippolyte timidly.
Devoured by a secret rancor and spurred on by a furious desire to be
spiteful and resentful, George replied: "No."
But his heart protested. "Stay far from her to-night? You cannot. No,
you cannot." And in spite of his blind, hostile impulses, the
conviction of this impossibility, the sure knowledge of this absolute
impossibility, gave him a kind of internal thrill, a strange thrill of
exalted pride at being controlled by such a great passion. He repeated
to himself: "_I could not_ stay away from her to-night; no, I could
not." And he felt the indefinable sensation of being dominated by an
unknown power. A tragic breath passed over his being. "George!" cried
Hippolyte, frightened and clinging to his arm.
He started. He recognized the spot where they had stopped to look at
the bloody stain left by the suicide. "Are you afraid?" he asked.
"A little," she replied, still holding his arm.
He disengaged himself from this restraint and, approaching the parapet,
leaned over. Darkness had already enshrouded the street below; but he
believed he could still distinguish the blackish spot on the
cobblestones, because he still had the recent picture before his mind.
The deepening twilight seemed to suggest and create a phantom corpse,
the indefinite and bloody form of a blond young man. "Who was this man?
Why did he kill himself?" In this phantom he seemed to recognize his
own form. Rapid, incoherent thoughts coursed through his brain. He saw,
as by a lightning flash, his poor uncle Demetrius, his father's youngest
brother, also a suicide--a face covered by a black pall resting on a
white pillow, a slender, pale, yet virile hand, and a small silver
vessel containing holy water suspended from the wall by three small
chains which, every now and then, rattled as they were swung by the
breeze. "Suppose I threw myself over? A leap forward, a rapid fall!
Does one lose consciousness when falling through space?" He imagined
the shock of the body against the stones, and he shuddered. Then he
felt in all his limbs a violent, agonizing repulsion, mingled with a
feeling of strange lassitude. In his imagination he conjured up the
delights of the coming night: to be lulled gradually into a state of
delicious languor; to awake with a superabundance of tenderness
mysteriously accumulated during one's sleep. Fancies and ideas followed
one another with extraordinary rapidity.
When he turned round, his eyes met those of Hippolyte. Her eyes were
widely dilated and fixed upon him, and he believed he could read in
their depths things which increased his pain. He passed his arm beneath
that of his mistress with an affectionate gesture customary with him.
And she pressed his arm firmly against her heart. Both felt a sudden
desire to embrace, to dissolve one into the other, distractedly.
"All out! All out!"
The cry of the keepers resounded among the groves, disturbing the
silence.
"All out!"
After the cry, the silence seemed heavier and more dismal than ever, and
these few words, vociferated by men they could not see, gave the two
lovers an insupportable shock. To show that they had heard and were
preparing to leave, they hastened their step. But here and there, in
the deserted paths, the voices obstinately repeated:
"All out!"
"Curse their cries!" exclaimed Hippolyte, with a gesture of impatience
and exasperation, and increasing the rapidity of her pace.
The clock of the Trinita-de-Monti sounded the Angelus. Rome appeared,
similar to an immense, grayish, formless cloud touching the earth.
Already, in the neighboring houses, several windows were lit up, their
lights enlarged by the fog. A few drops of rain were falling.
"You'll come to me to-night, won't you?" asked George.
"Yes, yes, I will come."
"Early?"
"About eleven."
"I should die if you did not come."
"I will come."
They gazed in each other's eyes, exchanging an intoxicating promise.