The Torrent Part 11

When Leonora reappeared, her maid was following her with a great bundle of clothes in her arms.

"You understand, of course, we haven't a st.i.tch of men's clothes in the house. But in war-time we get along as best we can, eh? We're in what you might call a state of siege here."

Rafael noted the dimples that a charming smile traced in those wonderful cheeks! And what perfect teeth--jewels in a casket of red velvet!

"Now, Cupido; off with those wet things of yours; you're not going to catch pneumonia on my account, and thus deprive the city of its one bright spot. Here's something to put on while we are drying your clothes."

And she offered the barber a magnificent gown of blue velvet, with veritable cascades of lace at the breast and on the sleeves.

Cupido nearly fell off his chair.... Was he going to dress in top style for once in his life? And with those side-whiskers?... How the people in Alcira would howl if they could only see him now! And entering at once into the fun of the situation, he hastened into the next room to don his gown.

"For you," Leonora said to Rafael with a motherly smile, "I could find only this fur cloak. Come, now, take off that jacket of yours; it's dripping wet."

With a blush, the young man refused. No, he was all right! Nothing would happen to him! He had been wetter than that many times.

Leonora without losing her smile, seemed to grow impatient. No one in that house ever talked back to her.

"Come, Rafael, don't be so silly. We'll have to treat you like a child."

And taking him by a sleeve, as if he were a refractory baby, she began to pull at his jacket.

The young man, in his confusion, was hardly aware of what was taking place. He seemed to be traveling along on an endless horizon, at greater speed than he had been swept down the river just before. She had called him by his first name; he was a pampered guest in a house he had for months been trying in vain to enter, and she, Leonora, was calling him "child" and treating him like a child, as if they had been friends all their lives. What sort of woman was this? Was he not lost in some strange world? The women of the city--the girls he met at the parties at his home, seemed to be creatures of another race, living far, ever so far, away, at the other end of the earth, cut off from him forever by that immense sheet of water.

"Come, Mr. Obstinate, or we'll have to undress you like a doll."

She was bending over him; he could feel her breath upon his cheeks, and the touch of her delicate, agile hands; and a sense of delicious intoxication swept over him.

The fur coat was drawn snugly about his shoulders. It was a rare garment; a cloak of blue fox as soft as silk, thick, yet light as the plumes of some fantastic bird. Though Rafael pa.s.sed for a tall man, its edges touched the floor. The young man realized that thousands of francs had suddenly been thrown over his back, and tremblingly he gathered the bottom up, lest he should step upon it.

Leonora laughed at his embarra.s.sment.

"Don't be afraid; no matter if you do tread on it. One would think you were wearing a sacred veil from the respect you show that coat. It isn't worth much. I use it only to travel in. A grandduke gave it to me in Saint Petersburg."

And to show more clearly how little she prized the princely gift, she wrapped it closer around the boy, patting at his shoulders to fit it more tightly to him.

Slowly they walked back into the front room. Meanwhile, the appearance of the barber, dressed in his luxuriant gown, was greeted with shouts of laughter in the dining-room. Cupido was taking full advantage of the occasion. The train in one hand and stroking his side-whiskers with the other, he was writhing about like a prima donna in her big scene and singing in a falsetto soprano voice. The peasant family laughed like mad, forgetting the disaster that had overtaken their home; Beppa opened her eyes wide, surprised at the elegant figure of the man, and the grace with which he p.r.o.nounced the Italian verses. Even poor dona Pepa hitched around in her armchair and applauded. The barber, according to her, was the most charming devil in the world.

Rafael was standing on the balcony, at Leonora's side, his gaze lost in the darkness, his spirit lulled by the music of her sweet voice, his body snug and comfortable in that elegant garment which seemed to have retained something of the warmth and perfume of her shoulders. With marks of very real interest, she was questioning him about the desperate trip down the river.

Rafael answered her inquiries with bated breath.

"What you have done," the prima donna was saying, "deserves my deep, deep grat.i.tude! It is a chivalrous act worthy of ancient times.

Lohengrin, arriving in his little boat to save Elsa! Only the swan is lacking ...unless you want to call Cupido a swan...."

"And suppose you had been carried off--drowned!..." the youth exclaimed in justification of his rashness.

"Drowned!...I must confess that at first I was somewhat afraid. Not so much of dying, for I'm somewhat tired of life--as you will realize after you've known me a little longer. But a death like that, suffocated in that mud, that filthy, dirty water that smells so bad, doesn't at all appeal to me. If it were some green, transparent Swiss lake!... I want beauty even in death; I'm concerned with the 'final posture,' like the Romans, and I was afraid of peris.h.i.+ng here like a rat in a sewer.... And nevertheless, I couldn't help laughing at my aunt and our poor servants to see the fright they were in!... Now the water is no longer rising, and the house is strong. Our only trouble is that we're cut off, and I'm waiting for daylight to come so that we can see where we are. The sight of all this country changed into a lake must be very beautiful, isn't it, Rafael?"

"You've probably seen far more interesting things," the young man replied.

"I don't deny that; but I'm always most impressed by the sensation of the moment."

And she fell silent, showing by her sudden seriousness the vexation that his distant allusion to her past had caused.

For some moments neither of them spoke; and it was Leonora who finally broke the silence.

"The truth is, if the water had gone on rising, we would have owed our lives to you.... Let's see, now, frankly: why did you come? What kind inspiration made you think of me. You hardly know me!"

Rafael blushed with embarra.s.sment, and trembled from head to foot, as if she had asked him for a mortal confession. He was on the point of uttering the great truth, baring in one great explosion all his thoughts and dreams and dreads of past days. But he restrained himself and grasped wildly for an answer.

"My enthusiasm for the artist," he replied timidly. "I admire your talent very much."

Leonora burst into a noisy laugh.

"But you don't know me! You've never heard me sing!... What do you know about my "talent," as they call it? If it weren't for that chatterbox of a Cupido, Alcira would never dream that I am a singer and that I'm somewhat well-known--except in my own country."

Rafael was crushed by the reply; he did not dare protest.

"Come, Rafael," the woman continued affectionately, "don't be a child and try to pa.s.s off the fibs boys use to deceive mama with. I know why you came here. Do you imagine you haven't been seen from this very balcony hovering about here every afternoon, lurking in the road like a spy? You are discovered, sir."

The shy Rafael thought the balcony was collapsing underneath his feet.

He s.h.i.+vered in abject terror, drew the fur cloak tighter around him, without knowing what he was about, and shook his head in energetic denial.

"So it's not true, you fraud?" she said, with comic indignation. "You deny that since we met up at the Hermitage you have been taking all your walks in this neighborhood? _Dios mio_! What a monster of falsehood have we here? And how brazenly he lies."

And Rafael, vanquished by her frank merriment, had finally to smile, confessing his crime with a loud laugh.

"You're probably surprised at what I do and say," continued Leonora drawing closer to him, leaning a shoulder against his with unaffected carelessness, as if she were with a girl friend. "I'm not like most women. A fine thing it would be for me, with the life I lead, to play the hypocrite!... My poor aunt thinks I'm crazy because I say just what I feel; in my time I've been much liked and much disliked on account of the mania I have for not concealing anything.... Do you want me to tell you the real truth?... Very well; you've come here because you love me, or, at least, because you think you love me: a failing all boys of your age have, as soon as they find a woman different from the others they know."

Rafael bowed his head and said nothing; he did not dare look up. He felt the gaze of those green eyes upon the back of his head and they seemed to reach right into his soul.

"Let's see your face. Raise that head of yours a little. Why don't you say it isn't so, as you did before? Am I right or not?"

"And supposing you were right?..." Rafael ventured to murmur, finding himself thus suddenly discovered.

"Since I know I am, I thought it best to provoke this explanation, so as to avoid any misunderstandings. After what has happened to-night, I want to have you for a friend; friend you understand, and nothing more; a comrades.h.i.+p based on grat.i.tude. We ought to know in advance exactly where we stand. We'll be friends, won't we?... You must feel quite at home here; and I'm sure I shall find you a very agreeable chum. What you've done to-night has given you a greater hold on my affection than you could ever have gained in any ordinary social way; but you're going to promise me that you won't drift into any of that silly love-making that has always been the bane of my existence."

"And if I can't help myself?" murmured Rafael.

"'And if I can't help myself'," said Leonora, laughing and mimicking the voice of the young man and the expression on his face. "'And if I can't help myself'! That's what they all say! And why can't you help yourself? How can one take seriously a love for a woman you are now seeing for the second time? These sudden pa.s.sions are all inventions of you men. They're not genuine. You get them out of the novels you read, or out of the operas we sing. Nonsense that poets write and callow boys swallow like so many b.o.o.bies and try to transplant into real life! The trouble is we singers are in the secret, and laugh at such bosh. Well, now you know--good friends, and the soft pedal on sentiment and drama, eh? In that way we'll get along very well and the house will be yours."

Leonora paused and, threatening him playfully with her forefinger, added:

"Otherwise, you may consider me just as ungrateful and cruel as you please, but your gallant conduct of to-night won't count. You'll not be permitted to enter this place again. I want no adorers; I have come here looking for rest, friends.h.i.+p, peace ... Love! A beautiful, cruel hoax!..."

She was speaking very earnestly, without moving, her gaze lost on that immense sheet of water.

Rafael dared to look at her squarely now. He had raised his head and was studying her as she stood there thinking. Her beautiful face was tinted with a bluish light, that seemed to surround her with a halo of romance.

Morning was coming on, and the leaden curtains of the sky were rent in the direction of the sea, allowing a livid light to filter through.