VIII
Palmer, who was really obliged to remain in Florence and to send Thérèse away, felt a mortal pang as he watched her go. And yet the danger that he dreaded did not exist. The chain could not be rewelded. Laurent did not even think of trying to stir Thérèse’s passions; but, feeling sure that he had not lost her heart, he resolved to recover her esteem. He resolved, do we say? No, he made no plan; he simply felt a natural longing to raise himself in the eyes of that woman who had grown so much greater in his mind. If he had appealed to her at that moment, she would have resisted him without difficulty; she would, perhaps, have despised him. He took pains not to do it, or, rather, he did not think of it. His instincts were too true to make such a mistake. In good faith, and with the utmost enthusiasm, he assumed the rôle of the man with the broken heart, of the chastised, humble child, so that, at the end of the journey, Thérèse wondered if he were not the victim of their fatal liaison.
During that three days’ tête-à-tête, Thérèse was happy with Laurent. She saw a new era of exquisite sentiments opening before her, an unexplored road, for she had hitherto walked alone in it. She enjoyed keenly the pleasurable sensation of loving without remorse, without anxiety, and without a struggle, a pale-faced, feeble creature, who was no longer aught save a soul, so to speak, and whom she fancied she had found again beyond this life, in the paradise of pure spirits, as one dreams of finding one’s self after death.
And then she had been deeply wounded and humiliated by him, stirred up and irritated against herself; that love, which she had accepted with so much courage and grandeur of soul, had left a stain, as a purely sensual liaison would have done. Then had come a moment when she had despised herself for allowing herself to be so grossly deceived. So she felt as if she were born again, and she became reconciled with the past when she saw growing upon the grave of that buried passion a flower of enthusiastic friendship lovelier than the passion had been even in its best days.
It was the 10th of May that they arrived at Spezzia, a small picturesque town, half-Genoese and half-Florentine, at the head of a bay as smooth and blue as the loveliest sky. The season for sea-bathing had not arrived. The country round about was an enchanted solitude, the weather cool and exquisite. At sight of that beautiful, calm water, Laurent, whom the carriage journey had fatigued somewhat, decided to go by sea. They inquired about means of transportation; a small steamboat went to Genoa twice a week. Thérèse was glad that it did not start that same evening. Her patient had twenty-four hours for rest. She bade him engage a cabin on the boat for the following day.
Laurent, although he still felt decidedly weak, had never been so well. He slept and ate like a child. The delicious languor of the first days of complete cure caused a blissful sort of confusion in his mind. The memory of his past life vanished like a bad dream. He felt and believed that he was radically changed forever. In this new life, he seemed not to have the faculty of suffering. He left Thérèse with a sort of triumphant joy amid his tears. This submission to the decrees of destiny was in his eyes a voluntary expiation for which she should give him due credit. He had not sought it, but he had accepted it at the moment when for the first time he realized the value of what he had hitherto failed to appreciate. He carried this craving for self-immolation so far as to tell her that she must love Palmer, that he was the best of friends and the greatest of philosophers. Then he cried abruptly:
“Don’t say anything, Thérèse. Don’t speak to me of him! I don’t feel strong enough yet to hear you say that you love him. No, keep quiet! it would kill me! But be sure that I love him, too! What more can I say?”
Thérèse did not once mention Palmer’s name; and when Laurent, less heroic, questioned her indirectly, she replied:
“Hush! I have a secret which I will tell you later, and which is not what you think. You could not guess it, so don’t try.”
They passed the last day rowing about the harbor of Spezzia. From time to time, they landed to pluck the lovely aromatic plants that grow in the sand even to the verge of the transparent, lazily plashing waves. Trees are rare along those lovely banks, from which mountains covered with flowering shrubs rise perpendicularly. As the heat was somewhat oppressive, they bade the boatman row toward a group of pines as soon as they spied it. They had brought their lunch, which they ate on the grass amid clumps of lavender and rosemary. The day passed like a dream; that is to say, it was brief as a moment, and yet it contained the sweetest emotions of two lives.
At last, the sun declined, and Laurent became melancholy. He saw in the distance the smoke of the Ferruccio, the steamer from Spezzia, which was getting up steam in readiness for sailing, and that black cloud passed over his mind. Thérèse saw that she must distract his thoughts to the very last, and she asked the boatman what more there was to see in the bay.
“There is Isola Palmaria,” he replied, “and the portor marble-quarry. If you care to go there, you can take the steamer there. It has to pass the island to go out to sea, for it stops at Porto Venere to take passengers or freight. You will have time enough. I will answer for that.”
The two friends bade him row them to Isola Palmaria.
It is a perpendicular block of marble on the side of the sea, with fertile fields sloping gently down to the shore on the side of the bay. There are a few houses half-way down the slope and two villas on the shore. The island is planted, a sort of natural fortification, at the mouth of the bay, the passage being very narrow between it and the small harbor once consecrated to Venus. Hence the name Porto Venere.
There is nothing about that repulsive village to justify its poetic name; but its situation on the naked rocks, lashed by angry waves,—for they are genuine waves from the sea that rush through the passage,—is as picturesque as possible. One could not imagine a more characteristic stage-setting for a nest of pirates. The houses, black and wretched, corroded by the salt air, stand one above another, immeasurably high, on the uneven rocks. Not a pane unbroken in the little windows, which seem like restless eyes watching for a victim on the horizon. Not a wall that is not stripped of its plaster, which hangs in great layers, like veils torn off by the storm. Not a straight line in all those buildings, which lean against one another and seem on the point of crumbling together. They reach to the very extremity of the promontory, where they come to an end in an old dilapidated fort and the steeple of a tiny church, standing like sentinels facing the immensity. Behind this picture, which stands in bold outline against the expanse of sea, rise towering cliffs of a livid tint, whose base, irised by reflections from the sea, seems to plunge into something as indefinite and impalpable as the color of the void.
From the marble-quarry on Isola Palmaria, across the narrow passage, Laurent and Thérèse looked upon that picturesque scene. The setting sun cast on the foreground of the picture a reddish light which blended in a single mass, homogeneous in appearance, cliffs, old walls, and ruins, so that everything, even the church, seemed hewn from the same block, while the great rocks in the background swam in a sea-green haze.
Laurent was deeply impressed with the spectacle, and, forgetting all else, contemplated it with the eye of a painter, wherein Thérèse saw, as in a mirror, all the flaming colors of the sky.
“Thank God!” she thought; “the artist is awake at last!”
In truth, since his illness, Laurent had not given a thought to his art.
As there was nothing of interest in the quarry, after they had looked at the great blocks of beautiful black marble, veined with golden yellow, Laurent proposed to ascend the slope and look out to sea from the highest point; and he went on through an almost impassable growth of pines, to a sort of fringe of lichens, where he seemed suddenly to be lost in space. The rock on which he stood overhung the sea, which had eaten into its base, and broke against it with a terrific noise. Laurent, who had no idea that side of the island was so steep, was seized with such a fit of giddiness that, but for Thérèse, who had followed him and forced him back upon the ground, he would have fallen into the sea.
At that moment, she saw that he was as terror-stricken and wild-eyed as on that night long before in the forest of ——.
“What is the matter?” she asked. “Is this another dream?”
“No! no!” he cried, rising, and clinging to her as if he thought that he had grasped an immovable rock of refuge; “this is no dream, it is reality! It is the sea, the horrible sea, which is to carry me off in a few moments! it is the image of the life to which I am returning! it is the impassable abyss that will soon be between us! it is that monotonous, untiring, hateful noise which I used to go to listen to at night in the roadstead of Genoa, and which roared blasphemies in my ears! it is that brutal ocean swell which I seemed to be trying to overcome in a boat, and which bore me resistlessly toward a deeper and more implacable abyss than that of the waves! Thérèse, Thérèse, do you know what you are doing when you toss me to that monster who is waiting yonder, his hideous jaws already open to devour your poor child?”
“Laurent,” she said, shaking him by the arm, “Laurent, do you hear me?”
He seemed to wake in another world when he recognized Thérèse’s voice; for when he appealed to her he thought that he was alone, and he turned with surprise when he saw that the tree to which he was clinging was nothing else than his friend’s trembling, tired arm.
“Forgive me, forgive me,” he said, “it is a last attack, it is nothing. Let us go!”
And he hurriedly descended the slope which he had ascended with her.
The Ferruccio was coming at full speed from Spezzia.
“Mon Dieu! there she is!” he said. “How fast she comes! if only she might sink before she gets here!”
“Laurent!” exclaimed Thérèse, sternly.
“Yes, yes, don’t be afraid, my dear, I am perfectly calm. Don’t you know that all I need now is a glance from you, to obey with joy? Call the boat! Come, it is all over! I am calm, I am content! Give me your hand, Thérèse. Remember, I have not asked you for a single kiss in these three days we have been together! I only ask you for this loyal hand. Do you remember the day you said to me: ‘Never forget that before being your mistress, I was your friend!’—Well, it is as you wished: I am no longer anything to you, but I am yours forever!”
He jumped into the boat, thinking that Thérèse would remain on the island, and that the boat would return for her when he had been put aboard the Ferruccio; but she jumped in after him. She wanted to make sure, she said, that the servant who was to accompany Laurent, and who should have gone aboard with the luggage at Spezzia, had forgotten nothing that his master needed for the voyage.
So she took advantage of the brief stop the little steamer made at Porto Venere to go aboard with Laurent. Vicentino, the servant in question, awaited them. He was a trustworthy man, selected by Monsieur Palmer, it will be remembered. Thérèse took him aside.
“You have your master’s purse, have you not?” she said. “I know that he told you to look after all the expenses of the trip. How much money did he give you?”
“Two hundred Florentine lire, signora; but I think that he has his wallet with him.”
Thérèse had examined Laurent’s pockets while he slept. She had found the wallet, and knew that it was almost empty. Laurent had spent a large amount in Florence; the expenses of his illness had been very considerable. He had placed the remainder of his little fortune in Palmer’s hands, bidding him make up the accounts, and he had not glanced at them. In money matters, Laurent was a genuine child, who knew the value of nothing at all outside of France, not even the comparative value of the coins of the different Italian provinces. The amount he had handed to Vicentino seemed to him enough to last a long while, but it was not enough to reach the frontier for a man who had not the slightest idea of prudence.
Thérèse gave Vicentino all the money that she had in Italy, not even retaining what she herself would require for a few days; for, seeing that Laurent was coming toward her, she had no time to take one or two gold pieces from the roll which she slipped hurriedly into the servant’s hand, saying:
“This is what he had in his pockets; he is very absent-minded, and prefers that you should take charge of it.”
And she turned to the artist to exchange a last grasp of the hand. She deceived him this time without remorse. He had been distressed and irritated once before when she wished to pay his debts; now, she was no more than a mother to him, and she had the right to do as she was doing.
Laurent had seen nothing.
“One moment more, Thérèse!” he said in a voice choked by tears. “They will ring a bell to warn those who are not passengers to go ashore.”
She put her arm through his, and went to inspect his cabin, which was comfortable enough for sleeping-quarters, but smelt disgustingly of fish. Thérèse felt for her smelling-bottle to leave with him; but she had lost it on the island.
“Why are you so anxious?” he said, touched by these attentions. “Give me a piece of the wild lavender we plucked together in the sand yonder.”
Thérèse had placed the flowers in her corsage; to leave them with him was like leaving a pledge of love. There seemed to her something indelicate, or equivocal at least, in that idea, and her womanly instinct rebelled; but, as she leaned over the rail, she saw in one of the skiffs made fast to the gangway a child offering great bunches of violets for sale. She felt in her pockets, and was delighted to find there one last remaining coin, which she tossed to the little fellow, who in return tossed his finest bunch over the rail; she caught it handily, and spread the flowers about Laurent’s cabin. He appreciated his friend’s modesty, but he never knew that those violets were paid for with Thérèse’s last and only sou.
A young man, whose travelling costume and aristocratic air were in striking contrast to those of the other passengers, who were mostly dealers in olive-oil, or small traders along the coast, passed Laurent, and, after glancing at him, said:
“Hallo! is it you?”
They shook hands with the absolute coldness of gesture and feature which is the stamp of young men of fashion. And yet he was one of those former companions in debauchery whom Laurent, speaking of them to Thérèse in his days of ennui, had called his best, his only friends. “People of my rank!” he would add; for he never lost his temper with Thérèse without reminding her that he was a gentleman.
But Laurent had mended his ways, and, instead of rejoicing at this meeting, he inwardly consigned to the devil this unwelcome witness of his last farewell to Thérèse. Monsieur de Vérac—such was his former friend’s name—knew Thérèse, having been presented to her by Laurent at Paris; and, having respectfully saluted her, he observed that he was very fortunate to meet two travelling companions like Laurent and herself on the wretched little Ferruccio.
“But I am not one of you,” she replied; “I remain here.”
“Here? Where? At Porto Venere?”
“In Italy.”
“Oho! then Fauvel is going to do some errands for you at Genoa, I suppose, and return to-morrow?”
“No!” said Laurent, vexed by this curiosity, which seemed to him ungentlemanly; “I am going to Switzerland, and Mademoiselle Jacques is not. Does that surprise you? Very good; then let me tell you that Mademoiselle Jacques is about to leave me, and that I am very much distressed. Do you understand?”
“No!” said Vérac, smiling; “but I am not obliged——”
“Yes, you are; you must understand what is a fact,” retorted Laurent, with a vehemence that was slightly overbearing; “I have deserved what has happened to me, and I submit to it because Mademoiselle Jacques, regardless of the wrong I have done her, deigned to be a sister and a mother to me in a mortal illness which I have just gone through; so that I owe her as much gratitude as respect and affection.”
Vérac was greatly surprised by what he heard. It was a story which resembled nothing in his experience. He walked discreetly away, after remarking to Thérèse that no noble action on her part would surprise him; but he watched the parting of the friends out of the corner of his eye. Thérèse, standing at the top of the gangway, crowded and jostled by the natives who embraced one another tumultuously and noisily at the clang of the warning-bell, bestowed a maternal kiss on Laurent’s forehead. They both shed tears; then she went down into the skiff, and was rowed ashore to the shapeless, dirty staircase of flat stones which led to the hamlet of Porto Venere.
Laurent was amazed to see her go in that direction, instead of toward Spezzia.
“Ah!” he thought, weeping afresh, “of course, Palmer is waiting for her there!”
But, ten minutes later, as the Ferruccio, after steaming out to sea with some effort, turned to round the promontory, Laurent, as he cast his eyes for the last time upon that dismal cliff, saw, on the platform of the old ruined fort, a figure whose head and waving hair were still tinged with gold by the sun’s declining rays; it was Thérèse’s fair hair and her adored form. She was alone. Laurent held out his arms with intense emotion; then he clasped his hands in token of repentance, and his lips murmured two words which the breeze bore away:
“Forgive! forgive!”
Monsieur de Vérac gazed at him in speechless amazement; and Laurent, the most sensitive man on earth in the matter of ridicule, did not heed the glance of his former companion in debauchery. Indeed, he took a sort of pride in braving it at that moment.
When the shore had disappeared in the evening haze, Laurent found himself seated on a bench by Vérac’s side.
“Come,” said the latter, “tell me about this extraordinary experience! You have said too much to leave me in ignorance of the rest; all your friends in Paris—I might say all Paris, since you are a famous man—will ask me concerning the progress of your liaison with Mademoiselle Jacques, who is also too much in the public eye not to arouse curiosity. What shall I reply?”
“That you found me very downcast and shamefaced. That what I told you can be summed up in three words. Must I say them again?”
“Then you really abandoned her first? I like that better for your sake!”
“Yes, I understand; it is ridiculous to be betrayed, it is glorious to have taken the first step. That is the way I used to reason with you, that was our code; but I have changed my ideas altogether concerning all such matters since I have been in love. I betrayed her, I have been deserted, I am in despair: therefore our former theories had no common-sense. Find in the theory of life which we used to put in practice together an argument which will relieve me of my regret and my suffering, and I will say that you are right.”
“I shall seek no arguments, my dear fellow; suffering is not to be argued with. I pity you because you are unhappy; but I am wondering if there is a woman in existence who deserves to be mourned so deeply, and if Mademoiselle Jacques would not have done better to forgive an act of infidelity, than to dismiss you in your present desperate state. For a mother, she seems to me a trifle stern and vindictive!”
“That is because you don’t know how guilty and absurd I have been. An act of infidelity! she would have forgiven that, I am sure; but insults, reproaches!—and worse than that, Vérac! I said something to her that no self-respecting woman can ever forget: ‘You bore me!’”
“Yes, that is a rough thing to say, especially when it is true. But suppose it was not true? suppose you simply said it in a moment of anger?”
“No! it was mental weariness. I had ceased to love her. Stay, it was worse than that: I was never able to love her when she was mine. Just remember that, Vérac; laugh if you please, but remember that for your own guidance. It is very possible that you will wake up some fine morning, sated with sham pleasures and violently in love with a virtuous woman. That may happen to you as it has happened to me, for I do not think that you are any more dissipated than I used to be. Well, when you have overcome that woman’s resistance, probably the same thing will happen to you as to me: having acquired the deplorable habit of making love to women you despise, you will be doomed to fall back into those cravings for a barbarous sort of liberty of which dignified love has a horror. Thereupon, you will feel like a wild animal tamed by a child, and always ready to devour him in order to break its chain. And some day, when you have killed the helpless little keeper, you will fly all alone, roaring with joy and shaking your mane; but then—then the wild beasts of the desert will frighten you, and, because you have once learned to know the cage, you will care no more for liberty. However slight the bond, and however unwillingly your heart may have accepted it, it will regret it as soon as it is broken, and it will have a horror of solitude, yet be powerless to choose between love and libertinism. That is a form of suffering which you do not yet know. God grant that you may never know it! And meanwhile laugh and jeer as I used to do! That will not prevent your day from coming if debauchery has not already made a corpse of you!”
Monsieur de Vérac, smiling, allowed this torrent of words to flow, listening to it as to a well-executed cavatina at the Théâtre-Italien. Laurent was unquestionably sincere; but perhaps his auditor was justified in not attaching too great weight to his despair.