The Grip of Desire Part 40

--What answer do you wish me to give you? except that I believe I am dreaming; in truth, I believe I am dreaming.

--Be more sincere. I do not like hypocrisy.

--You talk of a giddy little thing; I know no giddy thing. As to the rest, I have not quite made out what it is you wanted to tell me. I think that you have intended to make a joke about your old women.

--Ah, you, you never understand anything. Where did you come from?

--Why, from your school, from the seminary, and neither you nor my masters taught me that there.

--To me! to me! to me! you speak in such a manner to me? Oh clever fox!

_Alopex, alopex_. Well, you are sharper than I am, cried the old Cure, striking the table and looking at Marcel with astonishment mingled with admiration. Why should I concern myself about your future? You will succeed, my dear fellow, you will succeed. Oh, oh, you are a master. A gray-beard like I cannot teach you anything. Jesus, Mary, Joseph! That is my nephew! My dear old Ridoux, Cure of St. Nicholas, allow me to congratulate you. Monsieur le Cure of Althausen, I swear you will become a bishop. Monseigneur, I drink your health!

LXVII.

IN A GLa.s.s.

"The fumes of the wine were working in my veins; it was one of those moments of intoxication when everything one sees, everything one hears, speaks to us of the beloved."

A. DE MUSSET (_Confession d'un enfant du Siecle_).

They conversed for a long time still, and they drank too, so much so that Marcel went to his room with his brain charged with the fumes of the wine.

He opened his window and breathed with delight the fresh air of night.

While he gazed on the stars which were rising slowly in the sky, he tried to a.n.a.lyze the new sensation which he experienced. "How a few mouthfuls of liquor alter a man," he said to himself.

He felt himself to be totally different, and he allowed his thoughts to wander in an ocean of delights. His ardent and ecstatic imagination launched itself into s.p.a.ce. Bright unknown worlds rose before him with their atmosphere saturated with warmth, with caresses, and with perfumes.

He saw the future, and it appeared to him radiant. There were sons without number and feasts without end; the entire universe belonged to him. He flew from planet to planet without effort or fatigue, borne by a mysterious wing into the fields of the Infinite.

He discovered an unknown audacity, and all obstacles subsided before his powerful will. No more barriers, no more bolts, no more doors, no more pretences, no more social chains, no more terrible father, no more servant-mistress; Suzanne alone remained in all her youthful grace and her chaste nudity. For, after having wandered in boundless s.p.a.ce, it was towards her that his hopes, his desires, his aspirations inclined. There was the soul and the body; happiness and life, sacred symbolical wedlock, the chosen vessel, the nubile maid ready for the husband. And he murmured the Song of Songs:

"Let her kiss me with kisses of her mouth, For her teats are better than wine."

And it was at the very moment when he was about perhaps to be able to taste this exquisite cup, that he must go away. Go away! that is to say, leave her, she who had just cast a ray into his life. Go away, to obey a culpable ambition; to lose for ever this ravis.h.i.+ng young girl! And the promises which he had made to himself; and the unsatisfied desires, and the boundless joys, the delicious troubles, the sweet evening talks, the hand sometimes squeezed in a moment of audacity; of all that but the memory would remain. Of all the intoxications of soul, of heart, of sense; of all those joys which should repay him for his wasted youth, for his fair years lost, he would preserve but remorse ... remorse for having so senselessly let them go.

And all at once in the whirlwind of his ideas, he seized one as it pa.s.sed by. He noticed during the day the Captain entering the _diligence_ for Vic.

It was, in fact, the time at which he drew his pay. He could not return till the following day. Suzanne then was alone with the old maid-servant.

She went to bed late, he knew; perhaps she was still awake. He looked at his watch, it was not yet eleven o'clock; he still had a chance of seeing her. He cherished this idea; it pleased him and he was surprised that he had not thought of it before. Yes, certainly, he must see her, in order that she might keep the remembrance of him, as he was bearing away the memory of her.

What would be more delightful than to say to himself: "I hold the thoughts of a beautiful young girl, I hold her simple confidences; I possess the treasure of her sweet secrets."

And although there would never be between her and him but the pure and chaste sympathy of two souls, was not that enough, was not that a compensation, sufficient for the step which he was venturing?

And with the audacity of conception and the temerity of conduct of a man on the border of intoxication, he determined to put his fine project into execution immediately. His sense became inflamed the more he thought of it, and what had at first presented itself to him as a vague desire, soon became firmly fixed in his brain, and, in less than ten seconds, he had conceived the plan and weighed all the chances.

He decided that nothing was more simple, and that the only serious difficulty was to get out of the house without being heard. He still felt a few scruples; he poured himself out a gla.s.s of brandy.

--Let me swallow some courage, he said. What a singular piece of machinery is man, who imbibes in a few drops of liquid the dose of bravery which he lacks, and spirit which he needs.

And, in fact, he soon felt a generous warmth which ascended to his head; and his heart became anew surrounded little by little with that triple breast plate of bra.s.s, _robur triplex_, without which there is no hero.

He listened inside and out. All sounds were hushed; in the parsonage as in the village, everybody was asleep. He heard only the croaking of a legion of frogs which were sporting in the neighbouring marsh, and, far away, the bark of some farm-dog.

The night was splendid. The moon was rising behind the woods. That was a serious obstacle; but are there any serious obstacles for a man over-excited by drink? He did not even think of it; his mind was cheerful and content. If anyone encountered him in the night, wandering along the roads, what could they say? Had he not a perfect right like anybody else to take, the fresh air of evening? And, besides, might he not have been summoned by a sick person?

On the other hand, no more favourable moment would ever present itself for talking with Suzanne. His uncle was snoring in the next room, and his servant, supposing she was still awake, would she dare, while there was a guest at the parsonage, to come and a.s.sure herself if he was in his bed?

He took off his shoes, opened the door noiselessly and glided into the street.

He rapidly went round the parsonage, and he put on his shoes again only when he was at some distance, under the discreet shade of the limes.

Then he walked boldly on, keeping to the middle of the road, on the side, however, where the houses cast their shadow, and advanced with the step of a man who is going to accomplish a duty.

He arrived without any hindrance at the Captain's house. It was fully lighted up by the pale moon-light, and all the shutters were closed.

Consequently, the side looking upon the garden was in the shadow, and there was Suzanne's room, the room hung with rose.

So he pursued his way at a rapid pace, entered the little path, bordered with hawthorn, and soon reached the clump of old chestnut-trees.

LXVIII.

THE ROSE CHAMBER.

"They are women already, they were so when they were born, but one guesses them so still, one reads it in their little thought, one comes across an end of thread here and there, which is like a revelation ...

They are ... But forgive me, young ladies, I am afraid of going too far."

G. DROZ (_Entre nous_).

What man is there who has not experienced a delicious emotion on entering for the first time a young girl's room? Who has not breathed with voluptuous delight its sweet and chaste perfumes, and felt his heart soften in its fresh and fragrant atmosphere?

How pretty, neat, and harmonious is everything there. The most insignificant objects, the most common articles of furniture, have a mysterious and secret aspect there which makes one dream; one contemplates with transport all those nothings, all those little trifles, all those trinkets which young girls delight in, and because they have been touched by a white hand, they appear clothed in enchanting colours.

The fairy who lodges in this place has left a _something_ of herself on all which surrounds her, and _that something_ transforms all into jewels, even the least pin.

But that which above all else arrests the gaze, that which drives the blood to the head and causes the heart to beat, is the bed.

The young girl's bed, the sanctuary, the delicious nest of love.

There is the pillow on which her head reposes ... And then the question comes: What pa.s.ses in the young head when, softly leaning on the warm down, she lets her thoughts travel into the land of dreams?

When slumber soft on all Around thee is outpoured; Oh Pepita, charming maid, My love, of what think'st thou?

Here is the place of her body. Yes, it is there, beneath the discreet eider-down, that she hides her naked charms. And we begin to dream as well, and we say to ourselves that we would give much to be able to penetrate into this sanctuary at the hour when the divinity is going to bed.