Chapter XI: Book II: I (5)

‘What do they say?’ asked Serge, half swooning, as Albine pressed him to her bosom. The voices of the Paradou were growing yet more distinct. The animals, in their turn, joined in the universal song of nature. The grasshoppers grew faint with the passion of their chants; the butterflies scattered kisses with their beating wings. The amorous sparrows flew to their mates; the rivers rippled over the loves of the fishes; whilst in the depths of the forest the nightingales sent forth pearly, voluptuous notes, and the stags bellowed their love aloud. Reptiles and insects, every species of invisible life, every atom of matter, the earth itself joined in the great chorus. It was the chorus of love and of nature--the chorus of the whole wide world; and in the very sky the clouds were radiant with rapture, as to those two children Love revealed the Eternity of Life.

XVI

Albine and Serge smiled at one another.

‘I love you, Albine,’ said Serge.

‘Serge, I love you,’ Albine answered.

And never before had those syllables ‘I love you’ had for them so supreme a meaning. They expressed everything. Joy pervaded those young lovers, who had attained to the fulness of life. They felt that they were now on a footing of equality with the forces of the world; and with their happiness mingled the placid conviction that they had obeyed the universal law. And Serge seemed to have awakened to life, lion-like, to rule the whole far expanse under the free heavens. His feet planted themselves more firmly on the ground, his chest expanded, there was pride and confidence in his gait and demeanour. He took Albine by the hands, she was trembling, and he was obliged to support her.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said; ‘you are she whom I love.’

It was Albine now who had become the submissive one. She drooped her head upon his shoulder, glancing up at him with anxious scrutiny. Would he never bear her spite for that hour of adoration in which he had called himself her slave? But he smiled, and stroked her hair, while she said to him: ‘Let me stay like this, in your arms, for I cannot walk without you. I will make myself so small and light, that you will scarcely know I am there.’ Then becoming very serious she added, ‘You must always love me; and I will be very obedient and do whatever you wish. I will yield to you in all things if you but love me.’

Serge felt more powerful and virile on seeing her so humble. ‘Why are you trembling so?’ he asked her; ‘I can have no cause to reproach you.’

But she did not answer him, she gazed almost sadly upon the tree and the foliage and the grass around them.

‘Foolish child!’ he said, laughing; ‘are you afraid that I shall be angry with you for your love? We have loved as we were meant to love. Let me kiss you.’

But, dropping her eyelids so that she might not see the tree, she said, in a low whisper, ‘Take me away!’

Serge led her thence, pacing slowly and giving one last glance at the spot which love had hallowed. The shadows in the clearing were growing darker, and a gentle quiver coursed through the foliage. When they emerged from the wood and caught sight of the sun, still shining brightly in the horizon, they felt easier. Everything around Serge now seemed to bend down before him and pay homage to his love. The garden was now nothing but an appanage of Albine’s beauty, and seemed to have grown larger and fairer amid the love-kisses of its rulers.

But Albine’s joy was still tinged with disquietude. She would suddenly pause amid her laughter and listen anxiously.

‘What is the matter?’ asked Serge.

‘Nothing,’ she replied, casting furtive glances behind her.

They did not know in what out-of-the-way corner of the park they were. To lose themselves in their capricious wanderings only served to amuse them as a rule; but that day they experienced anxious embarrassment. By degrees they quickened their pace, plunging more and more deeply into a labyrinth of bushes.

‘Don’t you hear?’ asked Albine, nervously, as she suddenly stopped short, almost breathless.

Serge listened, a prey, in his turn, to the anxiety which the girl could no longer conceal.

‘All the coppice seems full of voices,’ she continued. ‘It sounds as though there were people deriding us. Listen! Wasn’t that a laugh that sounded from that tree? And over yonder did not the grass murmur something as my dress brushed against it?’

‘No, no,’ he said, anxious to reassure her, ‘the garden loves us; and, if it said anything, it would not be to vex or annoy us. Don’t you remember all the sweet words which sounded through the leaves? You are nervous and fancy things.’

But she shook her head and faltered: ‘I know very well that the garden is our friend.... So it must be some one who has broken into it. I am certain I hear some one. I am trembling all over. Oh! take me away and hide me somewhere, I beseech you.’

Then they went on again, scanning every tree and bush, and imagining that they could see faces peering at them from behind every trunk. Albine was certain, she said, that there were steps pursuing them in the distance. ‘Let us hide ourselves,’ she begged.

She had turned quite scarlet. It was new-born modesty, a sense of shame which had laid hold of her like a fever, mantling over the snowy whiteness of her skin, which never previously had known that flush. Serge was alarmed at seeing her thus crimson, her face full of distress, her eyes brimming with tears. He tried to clasp her in his arms again and to soothe her with a caress; but she slipped away from him, and, with a despairing gesture, made sign that they were not alone. And her blushes grew deeper as her eyes fell upon her bare arms. She shuddered when her loose hanging hair stirred against her neck and shoulders. The slightest touch of a waving bough or a passing insect, the softest breath of air, now made her tremble as if some invisible hand were grasping at her.

‘Calm yourself,’ begged Serge, ‘there is no one. You are as crimson as though you had a fever. Let us rest here for a moment. Do; I beg you.’

She had no fever at all, she said, but she wanted to get back as quickly as possible, so that no one might laugh at her. And, ever increasing her pace, she plucked handfuls of leaves and tendrils from the hedges, which she entwined about her. She fastened a branch of mulberry over her hair, twisted bindweed round her arms, and tied it to her wrists, and circled her neck with such long sprays of laurustinus, that her bosom was hidden as by a veil of leaves.

And that shame of hers proved contagious. Serge, who first had jested, asking her if she were going to a ball, glanced at himself, and likewise felt alarmed and ashamed, to a point that he also wound foliage about his person.

Meantime, they could discover no way out of the labyrinth of bushes, but all at once, at the end of the path, they found themselves face to face with an obstacle, a tall, grey, grave mass of stone. It was the wall of the Paradou.

‘Come away! come away!’ cried Albine.

And she sought to drag him thence; but they had not taken another twenty steps before they again came upon the wall. They then skirted it at a ran, panic-stricken. It stretched along, gloomy and stern, without a break in its surface. But suddenly, at a point where it fringed a meadow, it seemed to fall away. A great breach gaped in it, like a huge window of light opening on to the neighbouring valley. It must have been the very hole that Albine had one day spoken of, which she said she had blocked up with brambles and stones. But the brambles now lay scattered around like severed bits of rope, the stones had been thrown some distance away, and the breach itself seemed to have been enlarged by some furious hand.

XVII

‘Ah! I felt sure of it,’ cried Albine, in accents of supreme despair. ‘I begged you to take me away--Serge, I beseech you, don’t look through it.’

But Serge, in spite of himself, stood rooted to the ground, on the threshold of the breach through which he gazed. Down below, in the depths of the valley, the setting sun cast a sheet of gold upon the village of Les Artaud, which showed vision-like amidst the twilight in which the neighbouring fields were already steeped. One could plainly distinguish the houses that straggled along the high road; the little yards with their dunghills, and the narrow gardens planted with vegetables. Higher up, the tall cypress in the graveyard reared its dusky silhouette, and the red tiles on the church glowed brazier-like, the dark bell looking down on them like a human face, while the old parsonage at the side threw its doors and windows open to the evening air.

‘For pity’s sake,’ sobbed Albine, ‘don’t look out, Serge. Remember that you promised you would always love me. Ah! will you ever love me enough, now? Stay, let me cover your eyes with my hands. You know it was my hands that cured you. You won’t push me away.’

But he put her from him gently. Then, while she fell down and clung to his legs, he passed his hands across his face, as though he were wiping from his brow and eyes some last lingering traces of sleep. It was yonder, then, that lay the unknown world, the strange land of which he had never dreamed without vague fear. Where had he seen that country? From what dream was he awakening, that he felt such keen anguish swelling up in his breast till it almost choked him? The village was breaking out into life at the close of the day’s work. The men were coming home from the fields with weary gait, their jackets thrown over their shoulders; the women, standing by their doors, were beckoning to them to hasten on; while the children, in noisy bands, chased the fowls about and pelted them with stones. In the churchyard a couple of scapegraces, a lad and a girl, were creeping along under the shelter of the wall in order to escape notice. Swarms of sparrows were retiring to roost beneath the eaves of the church; and, on the steps of the parsonage, a blue calico skirt had just appeared, of such spreading dimensions as to quite block the doorway.

‘Oh! he is looking out! he is looking out!’ sobbed Albine. ‘Listen to me. It was only just now that you promised to obey me. I beg of you to turn round and to look upon the garden. Haven’t you been very happy in the garden? It was the garden which gave me to you. Think of the happy days it has in store for us, what lasting bliss and enjoyment. Instead of which it will be death that will force its way through that hole, if you don’t quickly flee and take me with you. See, all those people yonder will come and thrust themselves between us. We were so quite alone, so secluded, so well guarded by the trees! Oh! the garden is our love! Look on the garden, I beg it of you on my knees!’

But Serge was quivering. He had began to recollect. The past was re-awakening. He could distinctly hear the stir of the village life. Those peasants, those women and children, he knew them. There was the mayor, Bambousse, returning from Les Olivettes, calculating how much the approaching vintage would yield him; there were the Brichets, the husband crawling along, and the wife moaning with misery. There was Rosalie flirting with big Fortune behind a wall. He recognised also the pair in the churchyard, that mischievous Vincent and that bold hussy Catherine, who were catching big grasshoppers amongst the tombstones. Yes, and they had Voriau, the black dog, with them, helping them and ferreting about in the dry grass, and sniffing at every crack in the old stones. Under the eaves of the church the sparrows were twittering and bickering before going to roost. The boldest of them flew down and entered the church through the broken windows, and, as Serge followed them with his eyes, he recollected all the noise they had formerly made below the pulpit and on the step by the altar rails, where crumbs were always put for them. And that was La Teuse yonder, on the parsonage doorstep, looking fatter than ever in her blue calico dress. She was turning her head to smile at Desirée, who was coming up from the yard, laughing noisily. Then they both vanished indoors, and Serge, distracted with all these revived memories, stretched out his arms.

‘It is all over now,’ faltered Albine, as she sank down amongst the broken brambles. ‘You will never love me enough again.’

She wept, while Serge stood rooted by the breach, straining his ears to catch the slightest sound that might be wafted from the village, waiting, as it were, for some voice that might fully awaken him. The bell in the church-tower had begun to sway, and slowly through the quiet evening air the three chimes of the _Angelus_ floated up to the Paradou. It was a soft and silvery summons. The bell now seemed to be alive.

‘O God!’ cried Serge, falling on his knees, quite overcome by the emotion which the soft notes of the bell had excited in him.

He bent down towards the ground, and he felt the three peals of the _Angelus_ pass over his neck and echo through his heart. The voice of the bell seemed to grow louder. It was raised again sternly, pitilessly, for a few moments which seemed to him to be years. It summoned up before him all his old life, his pious childhood, his happy days at the seminary, and his first Masses in that burning valley of Les Artaud, where he had dreamt of a solitary, saintly life. He had always heard it speaking to him as it was doing now. He recognised every inflection of that sacred voice, which had so constantly fallen upon his ears, like the grave and gentle voice of a mother. Why had he so long ceased to hear it? In former times it had promised him the coming of Mary. Had Mary come then and taken him and carried him off into those happy green fastnesses, which the sound of the bell could not reach? He would never have lapsed into forgetfulness if the bell had not ceased to ring. And as he bent his head still lower towards the earth, the contact of his beard with his hands made him start. He could not recognise his own self with that long silky beard. He twisted it and fumbled about in his hair seeking for the bare circle of the tonsure, but a heavy growth of curls now covered his whole head from his brow to the nape of his neck.

‘Ah! you were right,’ he said, casting a look of despair at Albine. ‘It was forbidden. We have sinned, and we have merited some terrible punishment.... But I, indeed, I tried to reassure you, I did not hear the threats which sounded in your ears through the branches.’

Albine tried to clasp him in her arms again as she sobbed out, ‘Get up, and let us escape together. Perhaps even yet there is time for us to love each other.’

‘No, no; I haven’t the strength. I should stumble and fall over the smallest pebble in the path. Listen to me. I am afraid of myself. I know not what man dwells in me. I have murdered myself, and my hands are red with blood. If you took me away, you would never see aught in my eyes save tears.’

She kissed his wet eyes, as she answered passionately, ‘No matter! Do you love me?’

He was too terrified to answer her. A heavy step set the pebbles rolling on the other side of the wall. A growl of anger seemed to draw nigh. Albine had not been mistaken. Some one was, indeed, there, disturbing the woodland quiet with jealous inquisition. Then both Albine and Serge, as if overwhelmed with shame, sought to bide themselves behind a bush. But Brother Archangias, standing in front of the breach, could already see them.

The Brother remained for a moment silent, clenching his fists and looking at Albine clinging round Serge’s neck, with the disgust of a man who has espied some filth by the roadside.

‘I suspected it,’ he mumbled between his teeth. ‘It was virtually certain that they had hidden him here.’

Then he took a few steps, and cried out: ‘I see you. It is an abomination. Are you a brute beast to go coursing through the woods with that female? She has led you far astray, has she not? She has besmeared you with filth, and now you are hairy like a goat.... Pluck a branch from the trees wherewith to smite her on the back.’

Again Albine whispered in an ardent, prayerful voice: ‘Do you love me? Do you love me?’

But Serge, with bowed head, kept silence, though he did not yet drive her from him.

‘Fortunately, I have found you,’ continued Brother Archangias. ‘I discovered this hole.... You have disobeyed God, and have slain your own peace. Henceforward, for ever, temptation will gnaw you with its fiery tooth, and you will no longer have ignorance of evil to help you to fight it. It was that creature who tempted you to your fall, was it not? Do you not see the serpent’s tail writhing amongst her hair? The mere sight of her shoulders is sufficient to make one vomit with disgust.... Leave her. Touch her not, for she is the beginning of hell. In the name of God, come forth from that garden.’

‘Do you love me? Oh! do you love me?’ reiterated Albine.

But Serge hastily drew away from her as though her bare arms and shoulders really scorched him.

‘In the name of God! In the name of God!’ cried the Brother, in a voice of thunder.

Serge unresistingly stepped towards the breach. As soon as Brother Archangias, with rough violence, had dragged him out of the Paradou, Albine, who had fallen half fainting to the ground, with hands wildly stretched towards the love which was deserting her, rose up again, choking with sobs. And she fled, vanished into the midst of the trees, whose trunks she lashed with her streaming hair.