The dying flame of my memory burns up here into a brighter light. I
remember the following with a strange, besetting vividness.
As Madeleine rose from the sand some straws and bits of earth clung to
her skirt, and I brushed them off. Under the trees that bordered the
shore, our horses were browsing at some leaves, and I still can hear
the crumpling sound as they chewed them. To get back into the saddle,
Madeleine rested a foot in my hand; and again I had that sensation of
her extraordinary _lightness_. I looked up at her in some alarm.
As we rode along, I finally asked concernedly:
“My dear, have you been quite well these days past?”
She seemed surprised at the question:
“I?”
“Why yes, you! You seemed rather tired, I thought!”
She opened her handbag, produced a beauty-box and looked into the tiny
mirror that was on its cover. Then she laughed:
“What can you be dreaming of, silly! You quite frightened me! But my
skin is as rosy as a milkmaid’s!”
That was true. The exhilaration of the drive had brought the ruddiest
glow to her cheeks. She brushed them over with her powder puff,
however. I might well have accepted the explanation, but a feeling of
uneasiness came over me. Might there not be strange diseases that eat
out the vitality of a person without changing appearances of perfect
health? Certain fevers bring rosiness and not pallor to the features!
I had not seen Madeleine for nearly a week just previous. She usually
told me all she did. Perhaps she had been tiring herself in some way or
other:
“What have you been doing, love, since I saw you Tuesday?”
“Since Tuesday?” she repeated with some hesitation.
“Ho!” said I, “What a memory! Yes, since Tuesday, to be sure!”
“Oh, yes!... It would be easier to remember if there were anything in
particular,” she replied. “I have done nothing at all, stupid! Oh yes,
that’s so! I did go into town once! That was Thursday!”
“And without telling me you were to be there, where I could have seen
you?”
She turned toward me and stared, with a certain perplexity, as one
looks on discovering in the mind a thought, or a memory, one had
never dreamed of finding there. She repeated my exclamation with an
interrogative inflection:
“Without letting you know?”
She looked dreamily down over the mane of her horse. Then she resumed.
“That’s true! I didn’t let you know!”
And she blushed in the most evident perplexity and confusion. I was
quite amused; and I went on:
“And I suppose you had a date with somebody ... somebody whose company
was far more alluring than that of your old friend perhaps!...”
She passed a hand across her forehead, as though to collect her
thoughts; once, twice she did this. And I noticed that where her four
fingers pressed upon her marble skin, four ruddy spots appeared.
“Did I see someone?” she asked. “Whom did I see?”
She asked the question quite innocently in a sort of dreamy reverie. I
raised my voice in mock severity, the way one calls a child to order:
“‘Whom did I see!’ How should I know, dearie, whom you saw? I was
asking you?”
She started imperceptibly, and then quite changing tone and manner, she
resumed:
“Oh, I made a mistake ... Thursday! I didn’t go into town, Thursday! It
was Tuesday, and I took the train ... for Beaulieu!”
“I see ... so your mother is at Beaulieu again. You paid her a visit?”
“Nonsense! Mother is at Aix! This is September, you see!”
“Why Beaulieu, then?”
“Why Beaulieu?”
Again she seemed to have lapsed into a dream. As she answered, her lips
quivered and each word came out with an effort that was noticeable.
“Because ... why yes ... I had some errands to do there.... I went to
Beaulieu.... In fact ... see for yourself ...!”
She dropped the reins and began looking through the little bag that was
hanging from her wrist.
“See ... here is my ticket ...!” she added triumphantly.
I was quite puzzled, less at the fact of her visit to Beaulieu than at
her whole manner. And my astonishment was not relieved when I observed
that the ticket had been punched but once.
“You got on the train--that is evident! But how do you happen to have
the ticket, anyway? How did you get through the gate without giving it
up?”
Her eyes turned toward me vacantly, wide open, almost bulging:
“Why, I.... Yes.... How do I know? Of course not! I didn’t give it up.
I suppose the gateman failed to ask me for it....”
And her brow knit into a slight wrinkle that seemed to mark a strange
and intense mental concentration. A second later she seemed to give up,
and she confessed:
“Listen, darling ... I think I had better tell you.... It’s all so
absurd.... I’m really quite ashamed. But I think you ought to know.
Well ... see here ... I simply don’t know why I went to Beaulieu
Tuesday. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, to call me there ...
at least, nothing that I can remember right now.... Nor can I remember
having done anything in particular when I got there.... I left Tuesday
morning and I came back Wednesday night.... And I was all tired out
when I reached home.... There you have the whole story....”
I was so astounded at this incredible tale that I pulled my horse up
short.
“The whole story! That’s absurd, my dear! You must have left word at
home ... given some pretext....”
“Of course ... but what it was I can’t remember!”
“But your housekeeper ... your maid ... your husband ... when you came
home, they must have asked you about the villa or something!”
“Yes, my husband asked me if I had had a good trip and I answered that
I had!”
“And the train ... the journey itself ... the station ... Beaulieu!
Where did you go, when you got out of the train?”
“To ... to the villa, ... of course!”
“Of course nothing! You don’t seem to be so sure!”
“Oh, I’m sure ... sure enough! The trouble is, André ... I don’t know,
it all seems so vague and hazy in my mind ... and it’s funny ... the
harder I try to remember, the less I seem able to.... Oh, I’m ill, ill,
André! Here ... here!”
And one of her pink fingers pointed to the vertical wrinklet between
her eyebrows. As I sat there looking at her fixedly, searchingly, she
burst suddenly into convulsive sobs. I reined my horse to her side, put
my arm about her shoulders, and kissed her tears away.
X
For I loved the girl!
I make that confession here again, absurd, ridiculous, grimly ironical
though the declaration may seem.
I loved her. This I must say so that all of you ... men and women ...
will understand, and believe!
I loved her. Notice: I met her on a sunny afternoon in May; and again
on a moonlight night in June; and I found her beautiful; and I told
her so.... To you cynics it may seem strange, incredible, to call that
love! I can see you smiling!
But--all of you--look around among your memories, try to remember! You
have all met your mistresses for the first time at some time or other.
Before that, you were not in love. You began with simple curiosity; and
your first kiss was a kiss of playfulness--“Once will do no harm!” And
perhaps often it was the first and the last kiss.
But more often the first kiss gave you a longing for the second. The
flirtation became passion, and the passion devotion. “Once!” “Again!”
“And again!” And, finally, “Forever!” “For all our lives!”
Oh, yes, I know, I know! It was all a dream, and people cannot dream
forever. The flesh is weak, and the spirit less enduring than the
flesh. You wearied of each other! Forever became a year, six months,
six weeks! Love, indifference, infidelity, estrangement, oblivion! Oh
yes, I know, I know! But what of that? It was honestly that you loved
each other! In good faith you swore: “I must have you with me forever!”
In good faith you promised to love each other and cherish each other
and cleave unto each other! And truly would you have laid down your
lives that your mistresses might never die....
Smile then, if you wish, when I say that I loved her!