He sat down. Two policemen whom he knew came by and advised him to get
up, but he argued the question from a standpoint of personal taste,
and they passed on, laughing. For he was at that moment absorbed in a
problem. It was, how to see Rue Barrée. She was somewhere or other in
that big house with the iron balconies, and the door was locked, but
what of that? The simple idea struck him to shout until she came. This
idea was replaced by another equally lucid,—to hammer on the door
until she came; but finally rejecting both of these as too uncertain,
he decided to climb into the balcony, and opening a window politely
inquire for Rue Barrée. There was but one lighted window in the house
that he could see. It was on the second floor, and toward this he cast
his eyes. Then mounting the wooden barrier and clambering over the
piles of stones, he reached the sidewalk and looked up at the façade
for a foothold. It seemed impossible. But a sudden fury seized him, a
blind, drunken obstinacy, and the blood rushed to his head, leaping,
beating in his ears like the dull thunder of an ocean. He set his
teeth, and springing at a window-sill, dragged himself up and hung to
the iron bars. Then reason fled; there surged in his brain the sound of
many voices, his heart leaped up beating a mad tattoo, and gripping at
cornice and ledge he worked his way along the façade, clung to pipes
and shutters, and dragged himself up, over and into the balcony by the
lighted window. His hat fell off and rolled against the pane. For a
moment he leaned breathless against the railing—then the window was
slowly opened from within.
They stared at each other for some time. Presently the girl took two
unsteady steps back into the room. He saw her face,—all crimsoned
now,—he saw her sink into a chair by the lamplit table, and without
a word he followed her into the room, closing the big door-like panes
behind him. Then they looked at each other in silence.
The room was small and white; everything was white about it,—the
curtained bed, the little wash-stand in the corner, the bare walls, the
china lamp,—and his own face,—had he known it, but the face and neck
of Rue were surging in the colour that dyed the blossoming rose-tree
there on the hearth beside her. It did not occur to him to speak. She
seemed not to expect it. His mind was struggling with the impressions
of the room. The whiteness, the extreme purity of everything occupied
him—began to trouble him. As his eye became accustomed to the light,
other objects grew from the surroundings and took their places in the
circle of lamplight. There was a piano and a coal-scuttle and a little
iron trunk and a bath-tub. Then there was a row of wooden pegs against
the door, with a white chintz curtain covering the clothes underneath.
On the bed lay an umbrella and a big straw hat, and on the table, a
music-roll unfurled, an ink-stand, and sheets of ruled paper. Behind
him stood a wardrobe faced with a mirror, but somehow he did not care
to see his own face just then. He was sobering.
The girl sat looking at him without a word. Her face was
expressionless, yet the lips at times trembled almost imperceptibly.
Her eyes, so wonderfully blue in the daylight, seemed dark and soft as
velvet, and the colour on her neck deepened and whitened with every
breath. She seemed smaller and more slender than when he had seen her
in the street, and there was now something in the curve of her cheek
almost infantine. When at last he turned and caught his own reflection
in the mirror behind him, a shock passed through him as though he had
seen a shameful thing, and his clouded mind and his clouded thoughts
grew clearer. For a moment their eyes met then his sought the floor,
his lips tightened, and the struggle within him bowed his head and
strained every nerve to the breaking. And now it was over, for the
voice within had spoken. He listened, dully interested but already
knowing the end,—indeed it little mattered;—the end would always be
the same for him;—he understood now—always the same for him, and he
listened, dully interested, to a voice which grew within him. After
a while he stood up, and she rose at once, one small hand resting on
the table. Presently he opened the window, picked up his hat, and shut
it again. Then he went over to the rosebush and touched the blossoms
with his face. One was standing in a glass of water on the table and
mechanically the girl drew it out, pressed it with her lips and laid
it on the table beside him. He took it without a word and crossing the
room, opened the door. The landing was dark and silent, but the girl
lifted the lamp and gliding past him slipped down the polished stairs
to the hallway. Then unchaining the bolts, she drew open the iron
wicket.
Through this he passed with his rose.