Woman Part 15

But if I had also been told: "A day will come when you will have nothing more to learn of each other, nothing more to tell each other; without mutual explanations you will understand everything," I should have denied the possibility. I should have cried out that a whole century wouldn't be enough to bring two human beings into harmony, because human beings change from second to second. I should have said it was blasphemy.

But the day did come.

There is a region of soft azure outlines where words have been extinguished. _He_ exists and I exist.

It is a little green arbor where nothing, in short, binds us together, neither the flaming leaf.a.ge, nor the smell of invisible murmuring water, nor the languis.h.i.+ng hour; neither the nights past and gone, nor the days to come, nor the little child asleep at home in his cradle. If anything binds us together, it is the freedom that each of us has found, nothing else.

One must never say "This is love," for love is the heaven that the heart has in prospect, and the whole of s.p.a.ce is yet to be traversed.... It is an immense feeling which speaks and impels you and is made up of certainty and clearness.

I am sure of him.

He might see a weapon of crime in my hands--or at least some symbolic weapon, something he holds a crime--without a shrug of his shoulders.

Remembering that my tenderness is unfailing, he would say to me "all right," then he would come to me to find out why what I was doing was right.

And he is sure of me. He could leave us, his hearth, his love, his child, without so much as a glance back. I should merely say: "He had to go, he must submit to our love, and go his own way. That is how we love each other."

A moment at the foot of a hill, a great moment, so welcoming, so stable, and so peaceful that it is like an open doorway before which you must commune with yourself before entering. Two years gone by. Before me the rest of my life.

I have also had my doubts and fears. In the beginning I said to myself: "Will life allow such a love? What will become of this ardor and determination? And he, will he allow me to love him as my heart dictates?"

We have gone through daily cares together, poverty, weariness, all the formidable common things. We got many laughs and more strength out of them. In the evening his step would sound on the dark landing; I would run to the door to meet his smile; he would kiss me; the hours would fly.... That is the way two years unrolled their seasons and brought forth their fruits, and we became strict with each other because perfection revealed her face to us from afar.

So, without a word said, by minutes added to minutes, by the divine simplicity to which one approaches, you reach the promised land and the very heart of love.

I say what I see. Life does allow all the ardor, all the sublimity of two human beings to flourish; and in their relation to each other she grants even the impossible. I say what he and I are.

With one accord we rise, we know it is time. Our child is waiting for us, our house, our to-morrows, a thousand impatient desires, and all the things you don't think of in advance.

We follow the line of the bank. Where to? I do not know, but I know it is sweet, very sweet, and his arm is linked in mine.

Ahead of us are two banks set with houses and edged with reeds sharp-edged and long as swords.

It gives you a sort of dizziness to follow the banks straight ahead without removing your eyes. These two lines, separated forever and mingled forever by the current, are fascinating.

A marvel. Is it not a marvel? An arch. Rising from the ground on either side, its loving, solid curve clasps both banks and brings them together in an embrace. Nevertheless they are like two convicts. Yet at one point they become a single bank; they touch, they merge. Then they go on, their bed widening out. In spite of appearances they are still closely united in order to sustain the deepening river which will place its mouth on the mouth of the ocean.

Yes ... one more look....

Above the slope leaning down to lull itself in bliss, the sky has just enshrined a light cloud the color of periwinkles, and the arch resounds like an Hallelujah in stone.

Come.

XVII

He entered.

I cannot say how I reacted to the first steps he took into my life. I have only a confused impression left. The man who entered was not one to whom I could be indifferent. He was an aspect of my own being which was taking form and moving outside myself without recognizing me.

He approached shyly enough. My heart rose ... he approached ... I felt vaguely that a large event involving me was taking place in far-off regions, and the shadow of his body spread an immense new something before my eyes.

I thought him very gentle. I noticed the metallic clearness of his restless gaze, and that his figure suggested a great tree which dominates the other trees and lowers its branches so as not to be alone.

What was he going to do among these people, what att.i.tude would he, the single sane person in the entire gathering, a.s.sume? How was he going to behave in this brilliant drawing-room filled with twittering women, dazzling lights, bare shoulders, ripples of laughter, and heavy perfumes?

I had tried hard to cut a figure but soon had to confess myself beaten.

The women spoke a language not like the rest of the world's. Their vocabulary was limited to "masterpiece," "infamous," "divine,"

"diabolical," "delicious," "intriguing." In their presence an average, disgracefully normal, tame creature like myself without vices or virtues, had to keep mum.

The old gentleman advancing screened my escape from the group in which I had been trapped, and I managed to retreat to a safe corner, from which I saw the women fasten on him with a buzz of talk, a whole gamut of rosy bosoms and a great display of fireworks.... Further off the hostess was keeping a watchful eye to see that no one of the women distinguished herself too much. The elderly laughing gentleman must have been some one of importance....

The tobacco-laden air was gradually getting to be unbreathable. The noise pounded incessantly. I sat riveted to my chair without daring to move, as though a nightmare were upon me, the sort in which a terrible load oppresses your chest, though you remain conscious. "I am dying, I am dying." The load weighs more heavily. "No, I am dreaming, I am going to wake myself up." But you are impotent; you can't shake the load off and you can't come out of the nightmare.

It was just as I was exerting every muscle and sc.r.a.p of courage to escape from the oppressive spectacle--I had devised a polite pretext--when he entered.

The hostess went to meet him with her wide smile, her hand uplifted, and the phrase of greeting she had repeated at least twenty times since I had been in the room.

She steered him my way, threw out a rising syllable, a descending syllable, like two b.a.l.l.s between our two faces, and then propelled him over to the group while I listened to the m.u.f.fled echo of his name bury itself in my heart.

I forgot the smoke, the noise, my eagerness to leave. Even the weight lifted from my chest in the very way a nightmare suddenly takes wing and yields to a dream of clear, bright meanderings.

They did not pay much attention to him. The loud dame who presided over the group captured all eyes. She was plump and short; as she talked she flapped her arms like fins, and every now and then let out from her chest as from a great case a vibrant laugh, which sent undulations over her salmon-colored bosom. When she herself had done laughing, she would cast her eyes about in quest of approval as though levying tribute from the faces. But when she encountered the newcomer, she had to stop because his frank gaze p.r.o.nounced disapproval and denial.

How I wanted to thank him!

The company had been too much for me; it became too much for him. Soon I saw him cast about for a retreat.... For a second his eyes glided over me, I alarmed him as he had alarmed me. Then he slunk away, with the same crushed, crestfallen manner that I must have had.

He walked off ... the curtain of palms ... he disappeared.

By fits and starts the nightmare returned, clutching me with clammy tentacles. The noise fell in slabs, the weight on my chest suffocated me. Through a mist phantoms glided by, exchanging absurd bows, disjointed gestures, and disconnected remarks. A woman in a spangled gown with hair like flaxen wood-shavings turned and showed a chalky face. Others followed her, branded with painted red smiles. They were all hurrying. Refreshments were being served under the rotunda. The subdued clash of silver against gla.s.s sounded along with the clatter of china, little exclamations, and the shuffling of feet.

I am dreaming. Impossible that a gathering of human beings should be such an outrage on life, such a parody of it. When living persons come together and have attired themselves beautifully, it is for the interchange of what is best in them, not for the spilling of gall and the raising of a hubbub. I must be dreaming.

Little groups were coming back; women's laughter cut the curdled air like sharp lashes.

Again I made a painful effort and rose. With the looks of the women riddling me and paralyzed by the men's attention, I crossed the room driven by a force that operated for me. I found myself beside him.