Chapter VI (1)

One Sunday, as he got out of bed, the Prince felt like singing. Perhaps he was unconsciously following the example of some birds, which, deceived by the Spring-like warmth of a midwinter's day, had been warbling in the eaves of Villa Sirena since sunrise.

He looked out of his bedroom window. The Mediterranean, without a single sail, stretched away in far-off undulations, to where it met the sky. The gulls were wheeling in circles, continually drooping into the water, folding their wings, and letting themselves be carried along by the waves. The sandy depths, stirred by the swells, gave the blue sea a lighter shade, which attained, along the shore, an opalescent hue, like that of absinthe. Around the promontory, white luminous foam was constantly being churned among the projecting rocks of the reefs.

The Prince heard voices above him. Castro and Spadoni were talking from window to window. The mysterious call of the early morning beauty had caused them to jump out of bed. They were admiring the sky, which did not have a trace of mist to dim the brightness of its farthest reaches. The mountains stood out in extraordinary relief: they seemed larger and nearer. Above Cap-Martin, the Italian Alps descended to the sea, their outlying buttress, at the water's edge, white with the frontier towns: Vintimiglia and Bordighera.

Through some freak of the atmosphere, a dense, elongated cloud, like a snow-covered island, was floating directly overhead in the clear sky. Its whiteness seemed to radiate an inner light.

"I recognize it," Atilio said with a tone of conviction to the musician, who did not seem to tire of looking at it. "I have seen it often. When the day turns out too bright, the Directors of the Casino are afraid that the patrons may be bored by so much sunlight, and the vast expanse of azure: blue sea and blue sky. 'Have the big cloud brought out,' they order over the telephone. You must have noticed that that cloud always appears from behind the mountains. That's where the Casino has its storehouses. They don't neglect details here when it comes to entertaining their patrons."

Michael heard two exclamations: one of surprise and the other of indignation. Next he heard the sound of a window suddenly closed. The pianist, not in a mood for joking at so early an hour, was going back to bed, to sleep until lunch time.

The Prince hurried through his toilet. He felt the need of getting out and going somewhere, as though his gardens seemed too small for him. In the distance the bells of Monte Carlo were ringing, and still farther off those of Monaco were replying; and the merry pealing of the chimes caused the clear brittle air to vibrate like a crystal glass.

He went down stairs slowly, trying not to make any noise, and when he reached the gate he breathed freely. He had not met any of his companions, not even the Colonel. As though attracted by the Sunday morning atmosphere of gaiety which, as the afternoon wears on, changes to tiresome ennui, he decided to walk to the city alone.

Outside the gate, a girl was waiting for the street car. She was very young; but her feet slanted at a sharp angle on her high-heeled shoes. Her skirt, falling scarcely below her knees, showed her well-rounded calves. The finely woven stockings revealed the whiteness of her flesh. Prominent against the salmon colored silk sweater, was a necklace of large imitation amber beads. Her hair, cut short just below the ears, fell smoothly from underneath a jaunty velvet tam o'shanter of graceful line. The air of profound respect with which she spoke to him made him recognize her. It was the gardener's daughter. But at the same time she looked at him in a sly way with ill-concealed curiosity, as though her eyes made a distinction between the master and the man whom women adored and of whom she had heard so many things.

The Prince went on, after speaking to her as he would have to a young lady of his own social rank. He was gay that morning, and he laughed inwardly as he thought how later on that little bundle of mischief and ambition would keep men busy. Then he thought of Don Marcos, and what Atilio had told him. Poor Colonel! Imagine a person, at his age, trying to tame a young wildcat!

He walked lightly, with a springy step, in the direction of Monte Carlo. He passed the villas and the gardens as though contact with the ground had given his step fresh vigor, and as though the Spring-like air had abrogated to some extent the laws of gravity.

When he reached the city he stopped in front of the steps of San Carlos Church. Through the door he could see the twinkling tapers, smell the odor of flowers, and hear the droning of the organ, and the voices of young girls singing. He felt like a boy once more, buoyant and fresh as the morning, and had an impulse to follow the various families, in their Sunday best, who were ascending the steps. He was a Catholic through his father, a member of the Greek church through his mother, and nothing by his own inclination. Suddenly he felt a certain repugnance for the cave-like darkness, laden with perfumes, and dotted with lights. So he went on, breathing the open air with delight.

"Oh, your Ladyship! Good morning!"

A long, thin female hand shook his with masculine vigor. The brass buttons of her khaki colored uniform, like that of an English soldier, were gleaming in the sun. The uniform, instead of being completed by breeches, ended in a short skirt and tan leather leggings.

It was Lewis's niece. She had spent two afternoons at Villa Sirena rambling about the gardens. Once more Michael observed her unhealthy emaciation, which was beginning to take on the miserable appearance of consumption. Her Sam Brown belt buried itself in her blouse, as though failing to meet the resistance of a body underneath the cloth. The face under the visor of the military cap was as sharp as a knife. Her skin, drawn and lined in spite of her youth, showed all the bones and hollows. It was impossible to judge her age: she might have been twenty-five, or she might have been sixty. Only the eyes had retained their freshness; eyes that still kept the guilelessness of adolescence, and looked one squarely in the face with the serene confidence of a virgin sure of her strength.

She had gone through the horrors of war, as through a flame that dries up and parches everything it touches, and in the end converts it to dust. She was like a mummy, burned by the fire of the blazing towns that she had seen, and shaken by the tears and moans of thousands of human beings. "Think what those ears have heard!" Michael said to himself. And he understood the sad expression of the pale mouth which hung wearily between two drooping furrows. "And think what those eyes have seen!" he continued mentally. But the eyes did not care to remember and smiled at him, happy in the present moment.

She had just come out of a large hotel converted into a hospital, and was waiting for the street car to go to Menton. More wounded soldiers had arrived there, and owing to the scarcity of nurses the doctors had been obliged to accept her services. For the present they would not bother her any more with solicitude about her health! As she thought of the hard work that lay before her, of the long night watches, and the fight with death to save so many lives, she was filled with joy. She was anxious, as though she were going to a celebration to take the short trip as soon as possible, and seeing the car coming, she shook hands with the Prince again, with a firm grip.

"I shall go on abusing your permission. Next time I shall pillage your gardens even worse. Flowers ... lots of flowers! If you would only see the joy they give the poor fellows when you put them beside the beds! Some of the doctors are vexed; they think it is silly. But all I say is: as long as we have to die, why not die with a little poetry, with something around us to remind us of the beauty we are losing. It doesn't hurt any one."

Lubimoff went on his way, but his heart was less light. This woman, fighting death so generously and so manfully, seemed to have torn away the rosy veil that had made his eyes rejoice.

Everything was the same, but of a darker hue, as though he were looking at the landscape through smoked glasses. He noticed things which he had not observed until then. The large hotels had been converted into hospitals. Their porches and large balconies were filled with men basking in the sun; men whose heads were white balls, bound with bandages that left only the eyes and mouth visible; half finished men, as it were, lacking a leg or an arm, like a sculptor's rough models. Others were lying motionless, with both legs amputated, like corpses in a dissecting room, but still breathing.

On the sidewalks he met soldiers of various nations: French, English, Serbian, officers, and a few Russians, who reminded him of the former importance his country had had in the war. Every variety of uniform worn by the various armies of the French Republic passed before his eyes: the horizon blue of the home troops, the mustard color of the soldiers from Morocco, the yellow fatigue caps of the Foreign Legion, and the red fez of the Algerians and the negro Sharpshooters.

Each one was maimed. This sunny land, with its lovely views of sea and sky, seemed peopled with a race that had survived a cataclysm. Elegantly dressed officers, with handsome figures, limped along, cautiously dragging one leg, or else stepping gingerly on a foot so swathed in bandages that it was several times its natural size. Some of them were leaning on canes, bent over like old men. Men of athletic proportions trembled as they walked, as though their skeletons were rattling about in the hollow wrapper of their bodies wasted by consumption. Fingers were missing on hands; arms had been cut off until the shapeless stumps looked like fins. Under their pads of cotton, cheeks retained the gashes made by hand grenades, scars like those left by cancer; the horrible cavity of the nose, which had been torn away in some of the men, was hidden by a black tampon attached to the ears. The faces of others were covered by masks of bandages, leaving nothing visible save the eyes--sad eyes that seemed to look with fear to the day when they would have to grow accustomed to the horror of a face that a few months before had been youthful and now was like a vision in a nightmare. The bodies of some were intact, retaining their former strength and agility in all their limbs. Seen from behind they had kept all the vigor and suppleness of youth. But they walked abreast, holding tightly to one another's arms, their eyes lost in darkness, tapping the pavement with a stick which had taken the place of the vanished sword, and which would accompany them until the hour of their death.

And this procession of sadness and resignation, this grievous masquerade comforted by the joyousness of the morning, and feeling love of life once more renewed, was coming from the gardens. Others were going in the direction of the Casino and its terraces, passing among the Brazilian palm trees, with smooth, hollow trunks covered with elephant hide; among the cacti, held up by iron supports like a tangle of green reptiles bristling with thorns; among the prickly pears as high as trees; among the Himalayan fig trees, with towering trunks and wide spreading domes of branches which seemed to have been made to shelter the motionless meditation of the fakirs; among all the trees that come from tropical and temperate America, from China, Australia, Abyssinia, and South Africa. A tiny rivulet descended the slope in zig-zags through the openings in the green lawn, forming back waters among the bamboos and Japanese palms, until it flowed into a miniature lake, bordered with foliage, as tranquil, pleasing, and dainty as one of those centerpieces in which the water is represented by a mirror.

Michael stopped in the upper gardens to look at the Casino from a distance. He had never realized before the fussiness and bad taste of the architecture of this building, which was the heart of Monaco. If the "gingerbread monument"--as Castro called it--closed its doors, all Monte Carlo would be wrapped in a deathly stillness like the loneliness of those cities which in former centuries were ports, and now are sleepy and deserted, far from the sea, which has withdrawn. It was the work of the architect of the Paris Opera House, an ornate, gaudy, childish structure, of the color of soft butter, with multi-colored roofs, balconied turrets, niches with nameless statues, many tile friezes and gilded mosaics. At the corners there were green porcelain escutcheons, imitating roughly cut emeralds. The outstanding decorative motif of this building, famous throughout the world, was the imitation of gold and precious stones.

Owing to the prosperity of the establishment, they had added to the main body flanked with four towers, an extensive wing in which the best gaming rooms were located. Various green and yellow cupolas of different sizes revealed the existence of the latter, rising above the upper balustrade. On this balustrade a number of bronze angels or genii, entirely nude and with golden wings, had been set up. With black extended arms they were offering golden tributes, the significance of which no one had been able to guess. Other white or metal statues of half nude women were sheltered in the niches in the walls, and the names and significance of these were likewise a mystery.

Although the edifice was erected with the pretense of dazzling and charming with its gold and soft colors, those who went there paid scarcely any attention to its splendors.

"The ones who are arriving," Castro would say, "go in on the run; they want to get placed at the gaming tables as soon as possible. The ones who are coming out take a gloomy view of everything; and even though the Casino were as beautiful as the Parthenon, they would take it for a robber's cave."

The Prince looked to the right of the building, where a strip of blue sea was visible, with the hairy trunks and rounded tops of a few Japanese palms standing out against the blue. There at the entrance to the terraces along the Mediterranean rose the only two monuments of the city, dedicated to the fame of two musicians from the simple fact that some of their works had been played for the first time in the theater of the Casino. Carved in marble, Berlioz and Massenet greeted with a vague stare in their sightless eyes the cosmopolitan crowd that came to the gambling house. "They are honorary _croupiers_," Castro used to say.

"Massenet--that isn't so bad," thought Michael. "He was fortunate, he had money, and his gifts were recognized during his lifetime. But imagine Berlioz, who spent his years struggling against poverty and public indifference, standing guard after death over the Casino's millions!"

Next, he looked at the foreground, observing the open Square in front of the edifice. There was a round garden in the center. People called it the "cheese" and some even particularized and called it the "Camembert."

Around the garden rail and on the benches backing up to it, one could observe the living soul of Monte Carlo. Here people gathered, to exchange jokes and gossip, ask news from those who were coming out of the Casino, and comment on the good or bad fortune of the most celebrated gamblers.

In the immediate neighborhood, there were no business houses except jewelry stores, branches of the government pawn shop, and millinery shops. Women who played small stakes felt like satisfying their longing for an expensive hat on coming out of the Casino. Those who needed fresh capital to carry out their systems had only to take a few steps to pawn their valuables. In the show windows of the jewelry shops, pearl necklaces worth a million francs and emeralds worth three hundred thousand, were exhibited during the winter, waiting for a buyer; and in summer they were sent to the fashionable bathing resorts to continue being a mute and dazzling temptation. The jewelers, with Semitic profiles, were waiting behind their counters, more for sellers than buyers, and calmly offered a fourth of the price for a gem bought in that very shop the year before.

From a distance it was easy for the Prince to guess the character of the many people who at that early hour were sitting on the benches opposite the stairs leading up to the edifice. Here those condemned to misery by gambling, and accursed by fate, remained all day, suffering the most atrocious torment of living close to the door of the sanctuary without being able to enter. They had lost their last cent, and the directors of the establishment, who generously send ruined gamblers back to their respective countries, had handed over the _viaticum_ to them for their return. But they had staked the money given to aid them and had lost; and since they were debtors to the Casino they could not reenter it until they had fulfilled their obligations. So there they remained, stranded in the Square for all time, with the false hope of getting some money. None of them had any idea of how or from what source. They mingled together there in the companionship of misery, watching for fellow-countrymen who were better off, to besiege them with requests for a loan; or else they spent their time discussing numbers and colors. Perhaps they would succeed in getting together a few francs after turning all their pockets inside out, and they might choose, as the emissary of their illusions, a comrade who was as poor as they, but who had not "_taken the viaticum_" and was free to enter.

Michael saw a crowd of people extending as far as the Japanese palm trees, near the Massenet monument. They had just arrived by various street cars from Nice. They were all hurrying, anxious to enter the motley edifice as soon as possible, as though fortune were expecting them in the gaming rooms and might leave at any moment, tired of waiting.

He looked at the clock above the facade. It was ten o'clock. The daily occupations were being resumed and the devotees who lived in Monte Carlo were likewise flocking there, and mingling with the people who had come from other places. They all mounted the marble steps, following the three stair-carpets held in place by brass rods that glistened in the sun.

"And to think that we're at war!" Michael thought. "And many of those who have gotten up early to make the trip, and those who live here, too, have sons or brothers or husbands, who at the present moment are fighting, and dying perhaps!"

Love of life, love of pleasure, and the vain hope of winning, worked like an anaesthetic, causing them all to rise above their worries and forget, so that they were able to live entirely in the present moment.

This general rush for the opening of the gaming hall disgusted the Prince and caused him to halt in his descent of the gentle slope of the gardens. It was repugnant to him to mix with the crowd that was loitering in the neighborhood of the Casino.

His desire to retrace his steps gave him an idea. "Supposing you go and surprise Alicia at her home? She would be so pleased!"

She had been at Villa Sirena twice since her first visit. A chance meeting in the street with the Prince, when she was walking along with her friend Clorinda, had served as a pretext for another visit to the refuge in their beautiful gardens of "the enemies of women." He found the "General" less hostile and dominating than he had imagined; but he could not understand Castro's passion for her. In spite of her beauty it seemed to him that he was talking to a man. They had been accompanied by Valeria, a young French girl, who had been a protegee of Alicia's, a traveling companion in the days of dazzling wealth, and who now accompanied her in poverty, out of gratitude and fidelity. Later the Duchess de Delille had returned alone a second time to consult him about various projects for her future, all of them lacking in common sense; and she had finally accepted a loan of a thousand francs. Luck was against her in gambling: she needed new "tools to work with." The capital that had irritated her so by never varying, never going much above thirty thousand, had finally heard her complaints, and dwindled with lightning rapidity, leaving merely a few remnants of its former self.

In spite of the Prince's loan the Duchess had complained.

"I'm always the one who is looking you up: you never deign to visit my house. How poor I really am!"

Remembering her humble protest, the Prince no longer hesitated. Turning his back on the Casino, he began to ascend the sloping streets in the direction of the frontier line separating Monte Carlo from Beausoleil; streets that displayed names recalling Spring: the Street of the Roses, of the Carnations, of the Violets, of the Orchids.

He entered a short avenue formed by a double row of garden fences. He caught a glimpse of the houses between the columns of palm trees, and the firm leaves of the large magnolias. As he went along he read the names of the small estates carved on little plaques of red marble, placed at the entrance to the grounds. "Villa Rosa", here it was. He pushed open the iron gate, which was ajar, without hearing the sound of a voice or the barking of a dog to greet his presence. He saw a small garden half deserted, overgrown with weeds at the foot of the untrimmed trees, and covering the space that had formerly been occupied by flower beds. The rest was more carefully tended, but it was a vegetable garden with rectangles of kitchen stuffs intensively cultivated.

Lubimoff approached without meeting anyone. It occurred to him that the gardener must have been the man with the dog, whom he had met as he turned into the street.

Then he mounted the four steps at the entrance. Here too the door was half ajar, and upon pushing it all the way open, he found himself in a hallway with stairs leading to the upper story.

There was no one in sight. He tried the doors of the adjoining rooms and found them locked. There was not a sound. It was as though the house were deserted. But the silence was suddenly broken by a voice floating down the stairway. It was a faint voice, singing a slow, sad English air. The song was accompanied by a sound of dull blows, as though hands were beating and shaping up some large unresisting object.

Michael thought he recognized Alicia's voice. He coughed several times without result; he was not heard. He was about to call to let her know that he was there, but refrained, through a sudden impulse to play a little joke on her. Why shouldn't he surprise her by going up-stairs the one part of the house where she was now living, he thought? His hesitation vanished. Up-stairs he would go!

From the first landing he saw several doors, but only one was open; and it was from that one that the sounds of the song and the thumping were coming. A woman bending over a bed, was holding out her arms and vigorously shaking up a pillow. Instinctively she felt that some one was standing behind her, and turning around she gave an exclamation of surprise on seeing Michael in the doorway. The latter was no less surprised to recognize the woman as Alicia; an Alicia dressed in an elegant but old negligee, with crumpled gloves on her hands, and a veil wrapped around her hair.

"You! It's you!" she exclaimed. "How you frightened me!"

Immediately she recovered her composure, and smiled at the Prince, as the latter tried to excuse himself. He had not met any one; the gate and the door had been open. She, in turn, now excused herself. It was Sunday; Valeria, her companion, had gone to Nice to take lunch with a family she knew; her maid and the gardener's wife were at mass; the old man had gone out a moment before to see some friends.

After these mutual explanations they both remained silent, looking at each other hesitatingly, not knowing what to say, but still smiling.

"You making your bed!" he remarked, just to say something.

"So you see. This is rather different from my bedroom in Paris. It is hardly the 'study' that I took you to either. Times have changed!"

Michael gravely nodded assent. Yes, times had changed.

"At any rate," she continued, "you must confess that there is a certain novelty in seeing the Duchess de Delille, madcap Alicia, making her bed."

The Prince nodded again. Indeed it was a novelty: something one could not see every day.

Alicia persisted in her explanations. It had not been at all hard for her to do housework. She cleaned her room herself, in order to save her elderly maid the extra bother. She did not want Valeria to help her. They were each keeping their own rooms in order, now that help was scarce. Besides, she herself sometimes went into the kitchen, and she would have liked to help the gardener cultivate the little garden, just for her own pleasure.

"We are living in war times; things are getting dearer every day, and as for me, I'm poor. We ought to return to the simple primitive life. But I don't dare work in the garden, on account of the neighbors. They watch you all the time from their windows. There is a Brazilian gentleman, even, who seems to have fallen in love with me."

She herself was proud of her industriousness. Who would ever have guessed such qualities some years before in the mistress of the luxurious residence on the Avenue du Bois, who was in the habit of getting up at three o'clock in the afternoon?

"I owe it all to mamma. She had me educated in a girls' school in England, when it was the fashion to substitute domestic work for the physical exercise of sports. I think it's called 'Corinthianism.' And I feel better than ever. In the old days I had to get up several mornings a week with Valeria and Clorinda and go to a tennis club and play until I was exhausted. Now, after taking care of my room and helping with the others I don't need any exercise. I'm doing poor man's gymnastics."

There was a long silence. Michael looked at the room; a woman's bedroom, still in disarray, with clothes lying on the arm chairs, giving out the perfume of a fastidious femininity. Through a narrow door he saw a corner of the adjoining bath room, where a wet spot had been left on the mosaic floor, from the morning bath. An odor of eau de cologne and tooth paste hung in the air. From several toilet jars, in disorder, vague scents of more precious essences were escaping. Mingling with the toilet articles and objects of intimate apparel, he could distinguish cards such as are given out to the patrons of the Casino, to mark their plays; some with red or blue marks in the columns, others pricked with a hat pin, for lack of a pencil. He observed larger cards, with a roulette wheel indicating the numbers and colors; and also many books of the sort sold by the stationers and at newspaper stands; illuminating treatises on "How to win without fail in all kinds of play." On the mantelpiece, half hidden by various fashion magazines, was a small roulette wheel, a real one, used undoubtedly in studying out and trying various theories. On the lamp stand beside the bed the latest copy of the Monte Carlo Review was lying open, with statistics of all the winning numbers during the past week at the various tables; interesting reading, with mysterious annotations which had kept Alicia up perhaps till dawn.

In the meantime she was dexterously causing to disappear everything which she considered prejudicial to her appearance since the surprise. When Michael looked at her again the old gloves had vanished from her hands and the veil was hidden somewhere. Her hair, now left free, was black and lustrous, a trifle coarse, perhaps, but it rose luxuriantly in large ringlets in disarray.

They prolonged the silence with an embarrassed smile, as though neither of them could find a way of relieving the situation.

"Go on with your work," Michael said, somewhat timidly. "Now I'm here, I don't want to be in the way."

As though seeing a challenge to her embarrassment in these words, and anxious at the same time to show her skillfulness, she bent over the bed to continue her work. Michael regained his high spirits at this display of confidence. It wasn't chivalrous to allow her to work alone: he must help her.

"You! You!" exclaimed Alicia, laughing, as though such a proposition seemed to her unthinkable.

The Prince pretended to feel hurt. Yes: he! Wasn't he a sailor, and hadn't his adventurous life compelled him to know how to do a little of everything? More than once in his explorations in the wilds, he had had to make a bed as best he could, wrapped in blankets beside the embers of a fire.

He had gone over to the other side of the bed, and was imitating all the movements of the Duchess with comic exaggeration. He petted the pillows after her, with such violence as to make the bed resound. While she lifted it slightly toward her to shake it better, he lifted it completely with his strong hands.

"You don't know how! You don't know how!" Alicia exclaimed with childish glee.

Then, seeing his fingers seize the linen with a powerful grip, she added:

"Good heavens, let go of that: You'll tear the pillow, and just now, in these hard times!"

They both laughed, finding this work very amusing.

"Take hold!" she said in authoritative tones, and flung in his face a sheet that she was holding at the opposite side.

Michael found himself wrapped in a cloud of filmy linen fragrant with feminine perfumes. It was for an instant only, but to him it seemed like something extraordinary, of limitless duration, extending beyond the bounds of time and space. He had a presentiment that this insignificant event was going to be a turning point in his life. He felt his former self suddenly awaken with fresh vigor. Perhaps it was the stimulation due to continence. He thought of Castro's ironic smile, and of himself, living like a hermit there in Villa Sirena, and preaching hostility to women! There was a buzzing in his ears; his eyes, momentarily blinded, seemed to be gazing on a vast expanse of rosy sky, the pale, luscious rose color of a woman's flesh. There was something intoxicating in the sudden breath that caused his brain to reel, communicating the sensation to his whole organism, as violently as though struck with a lash. When the sheet had fallen back on the bed, Michael was deathly pale, with a look of intenseness gleaming in his eyes. She thought he was angry at the jest, and she laughed mischievously, leaning on the pillow with her hands. As she shook with laughter, the lace of her low-necked negligee trembled seductively on her breast and shoulders.

Suddenly the Prince found himself on the other side of the bed close to Alicia. Finally they both sat down on the edge of the bed, turning their backs on the forgotten sheet. He took one of her hands without realizing what he was doing. Then he bent so close to her face that one of her Medusa-like tresses brushed against his temple. He felt no desire to talk, but seeing her eyes, so close to his, he broke the pleasant silence.

"You have been weeping!"

The woman protested with a strained smile and grew pale as she stammered her excuses. No; perhaps it was the dust shaken up by the cleaning, or the effort of working. But he went on studying her eyes which were indeed slightly reddened.

"You were crying when I came in," he continued, with insistent and troubled curiosity.

Now Alicia's protest took the form of a harsh, shrill laugh, that was decidedly forced and unnatural. And by one of those modulations of which only great actors know the secret, the burst of her laughter died gradually into a sigh, then a groan, until, letting go the Prince's hand, she covered her eyes, and hung her head, while a fit of sobbing shook her whole body.

She was crying. It was enough that Michael should have discovered her recent weeping to cause the tears to rise in her eyes again, renewing her former anguish. She gave in to her grief with a sort of cruel delight, finding it preferable to the torture of feigning, which his unexpected visit had imposed.

The Prince remained silent for a few moments.

"Is it for that young fellow of yours?" he plucked up courage to ask, with a shaking voice as though he too were undergoing an unexplainable emotion.

She replied with a slight movement of her head, without taking her hands from her eyes. It was unnecessary for Michael to see them. He had guessed the truth on discovering the traces of tears. It could be only for him that she was weeping: the lack of news; the worry of thinking that he was a prisoner, far off, suffering all sorts of privations; and that perhaps she would never see him again.

"How you love him!"

The Prince was surprised himself at the tone of voice in which he said these words. There was a note of despair, envy, and sadness at the thought of the passing years, bequeathing to the coming generation the haughty privileges of youth.

The guests at Villa Sirena would also have been astonished to hear him talk in this fashion. Alicia's surprise caused her to forget all precaution as a pretty woman, and lift her head, as she took away her hands. Her face was red, her eyes tremulous and overflowing. A tear hung from a lock of hair. She realized that she must be looking terrible, but what did she care?

"Yes, I love him; I love him more than anything in the world. It is on his account that I go on living. If it weren't for him I would kill myself. But he isn't what you think. No, he isn't."

With her face so reddened with weeping, it was impossible to detect a blush; but her gestures, the expression of her face and the tone of her voice, rebelled with shame and indignation against the suspicion of the Prince.

She went on talking in a low voice, without daring to look at him, hurrying her words like a penitent anxious to get through with a difficult confession as soon as possible. On various occasions in talking with the Prince, the truth had come to her lips, and at the last moment the reticence of a woman still desirous of pleasing through her beauty had caused her to conceal the facts. But to whom could she reveal her secret better than to Michael? She considered him one of the family: he had received her in friendly fashion in her hour of need, when so many men had turned their backs on her. Besides, between a man and a woman, love is not the only feeling that can exist, as she had thought in the days of her mad youth. There were other less violent things, more placid and lasting: friendship, comradeship, and brotherly affection.

She paused for a moment, as though to gather strength.

"He is my son."

Michael, who was expecting some extraordinary, some monstrous revelation, worthy of her mad past, was unable to restrain an exclamation of astonishment:

"Your son!"

She nodded: "Yes, my son." With lowered eyes, she went on talking in the same nervous tone, as though she were making a confession. She went back over her past. How surprised she had been, how angry, at the cruel trick love had played in cutting off the best years of her life! Her indignation was like that of the citizens of Ancient Greece who began a riot when they learned of the pregnancy of a courtezan who was considered a national glory, a beauty whom the multitude came from afar to see, when she showed herself nude in the religious festivals. They were bent on killing her unborn child, as though it had been guilty of a sacrilege. Alicia, too, used to consider herself a living work of art, and wanted to punish the sacrilege of her child with death. What criminal attempts she had made to rid herself of the shame that was throbbing in her vitals! Besides, what tortures she had undergone in her efforts to hide it, to go on leading her life of pleasure as before, and suffer anything rather than permit her secret to escape! Returning from parties where she had seen herself admired as formerly yet always with the dread that her secret had been discovered, she would fall into fits of homicidal rage and rebelliously curse the being that persisted in living within her; and in paroxysms of wild hysteria she would devise ways and means of encompassing its destruction.

There were tears in her voice as she recalled these scenes.

"But how about your husband?" Michael asked.

"We separated at that time. He could tolerate my love affairs in silence: he could pretend not to know about them ... but a child that wasn't his own...!"

She recalled the attitude of the Duke de Delille. He had shown a dignity worthy of him. There had been many deceived husbands in his family: it had almost become a tradition of nobility, an historic distinction. He did not feel dishonored by selling his name in getting married in order to increase the pleasures and comforts of his life. His name that belonged to him was a tool to work with. But it was impossible for him to let that name get out of his family, to give it to an intruder to continue the line. His forefathers had had many illegitimate children; but it had never occurred to any of his gay women ancestors to introduce into the family descendants in whose creation their husbands could assume no responsibility whatever.

The Duke had separated from her, granting all her demands save that one. It was an adulterous son and it must disappear. And no one, except they two and the maid--who was still with her--were to know of the birth.

"There were times when I was quite happy," Alicia continued. "I learned to know new unsuspected joys. I would suddenly leave Paris: lots of people thought I was traveling with some new lover. No; I was going to see my little boy, my George; first in London, later in New York, but always in a large city. I could live with him, and play at being a mother, with a living doll that kept getting bigger and bigger ... bigger! Do you remember the night I invited you to dinner? I had just come back from one of those trips, and in spite of that, just think of the foolish things I said. I imagined myself Venus, or Helen, passing before the old men on the wall. And in order to give myself up completely to a paroxysm of maternal pride I was thinking of my heroines, who were also my rivals. Helen had had children, and men went on killing one another for her. Venus had not escaped maternity, and gods and mortals continued to adore her in spite of the fact that she had a son fluttering about the world. Maternity meant neither abdication of rights nor loss of prestige; she could go on being beautiful and being desired, like other women, after an incident that had seemed to her irremediable. So I went on living my life. Oh, when I think of how I sometimes shortened the time that I had intended to stay with him, in order to follow some man that scarcely interested me! Now that I haven't him, I think of the hours that I might have lived by his side, and that were given up to the first male that aroused my curiosity! It's my most terrible remorse; it gnaws at my conscience all night long, and drives me to gambling as the only remedy. I am certainly to be pitied, Michael."

But a fixed idea seemed to dominate Michael as he listened to her.

"And the father? Who is the father?"

The tone of his voice was practically the same as before: a tone of hostile curiosity, of aggressive spite.

Another wave of astonishment swept over him when he saw that she was shrugging her shoulders.

"I don't know; it doesn't make any difference to me. Other women, in like circumstances, fasten the paternity on the man they are most interested in. As though you could tell! I haven't picked out any one in particular from among my memories. They are all the same. I have forgotten them all. My son is mine, mine only."

She had the majestic indifference of the serene and fertile forest that opens its blossoms to the pollen scattered through the air like a golden rain of love. The new plant springs up. It belongs to the forest, and the forest keeps it, without showing any interest in learning the name and origin of the wandering source of life borne hither willy-nilly on the wind.

There was a long silence.

"One day, on arriving in New York," she continued, "I made a terrible discovery. I found my George almost as tall as I was, and strong looking, with the serious air of a grown man, though he wasn't quite eleven. I'm ashamed to think it; but I mustn't lie: I hated him. Venus might have a son, as long as the son remained eternally a little child through all the centuries, like one of those amusing babies that are dressed in a whimsical fashion, and are the mother's pride and amusement. But my own son, with his powerful body, his strong hands, and solemn face! It meant that I should grow old before my time; I should have to renounce my youth if I kept him by my side! I could never resign myself to declaring that I was his mother. And I fled from him, letting a number of years go by, without paying attention to anything in regard to him, excepting to send the means for his complete education. Oh, when I think how fate has punished me for my selfishness!"

She remained silent for a few moments to dry the fresh tears that were reddening her eyes and giving her voice a husky resonance.

"He came to Paris when I was least expecting him. The venerable friend who was looking after his education there in America, had died. I found a man, a grown man, in spite of the fact that he wasn't over sixteen. My first feeling was one of annoyance, almost anger. I should have to say farewell to youth, and change my mode of life on account of this intruder. But there was something in me that kept me from doing anything so heartless as to send him back to a foreign country, or off to a boarding school in Paris. I grew accustomed to him at once. I had to have him in my house. It seemed as though, when I was near him, I felt a certain serenity, a deep quiet joy that I never thought myself capable of feeling. You don't know what it means, Michael. You could never understand, no matter how much I tried to explain it to you. I swear it was the happiest time in my life. There is no love like that. Besides, we were such good comrades! I suddenly felt as though I were a girl of his age again; no, younger than he. George used to give me advice. He was so wise for a boy of his age; and I used to do what he said like a younger sister. He let his mother drag him along and introduce him to a world of pleasure and luxury that dazzled him, after his sober, athletic life with a stern educator. And I leaned proudly on his arm, and laughed at the false ideas people had of our actual relation. How we used to dance, the year before the war, without any one suspecting the true nature of the affection that bound me to my partner!"

Alicia paused to linger on these delightful memories. She smiled with a far-away look in her eyes, as she thought of the malicious error people had made.

"Every tango-tea in the Champs-Elysees found the Duchess de Delille dancing with her latest crush! And, Michael, as for me, I was proud that they should be making such a mistake. I went on being the beautiful Alicia, restored to youth by the fidelity of an adolescent who accompanied her everywhere, with all the enthusiasm of a first love. This seemed to me a much better role than that of the passively resigned mother. Besides, what fun we used to have laughing and talking it over afterwards when we were by ourselves! Many of my former lovers felt their old passion revive again out of a sort of unconscious envy--the instinctive rivalry that the man of ripe years feels toward youth--and they began besieging me with their gallantries again. George used to threaten me in fun: 'Mamma, I'm jealous!' He didn't want any other man to be showing attentions to his mother, so that she might belong to him completely. On other occasions I myself had better reasons to protest. I surprised a greedy look in the eyes of many women of my own class when they gazed at him--some with a boldly inviting look, since, being younger, they felt they had a right to take him away from me. And he was so good! He used to joke with me about these passions that he inspired; and tell me about others that I had not been able to guess! You don't know what young people are like nowadays, in the generation that has followed us. They seem to be made of different flesh and blood. Our generation was the last to take love seriously; to give tremendous importance to it, and make it the chief occupation of our lives. Now they don't understand people like you and me: we seem monstrous to them. My son is only interested in one woman: his mother; and in addition to her, automobiles, aeroplanes, and sports. All these strong, innocent boys seemed to have guessed what was awaiting them...."

As she spoke, the momentary serenity with which she had related this happy period in her life gradually vanished. She went on talking in a subdued voice, choked from time to time by sobs.

Suddenly war had come. Who could have imagined it a month before? And her son was ashamed not to be one of the men who were hurrying to the railroad stations to join a regiment. One morning he had overwhelmed her with the announcement of his enlistment as a volunteer. What could she do? Legally she was not his mother. George bore the name of a pair of old married servants who had been willing to play that game of deception by posing as his parents. Besides, he was born in France, and it was not extraordinary that he, like so many other youths, should have wanted to defend his country before he was called to arms by law.

The Duchess lived for a few months in a tiny village in the south of France, near the Aviation Camp where her son was in training. She wanted to be with him just as long as she possibly could. If only he had become a soldier at the time when she was living separated from him, and was concealing her actual relation to him! But she was going to lose him at the sweetest moment of her life, when she was beginning to think she might be at George's side forever.

"It did not take him long to become a pilot. How I hated the ease with which he learned to manage his machine! His progress filled me with pride and anger. Those young fellows are regular fanatics so far as aviation is concerned. It is something that has come into existence in their time, and they have seen it grow before their school-boy eyes. He went away, and since then I have been more dead than alive. Three years, Michael, three years of torture! I've paid dearly for all my past life! Though the mistakes that I made were great, I've made up for them, and more too. You may well have compassion on me. You can have no idea what I'm suffering."

The first year that Alicia had spent alone, she had lived in constant expectation of his letters, which arrived irregularly from the front. Her joys were few and far between. George had come to Paris only once on leave, and had spent half a week with her. At long intervals she also received visits from the aviator's comrades, greeting the news they brought with tears and smiles. Her son had received the War Cross after an air battle. His mother had cut out the short newspaper paragraph referring to this event, sticking it with two pins on the silk with which her bedroom was hung. She would spend hours staring as though hypnotized at these brief lines: "_Bachellery, Georges, aviator, gave chase to two enemy planes beyond our lines and ..._"

This "Bachellery, Georges" was her son! It made no difference to her that other people were not aware of the fact. Her pride seemed to grow because of the mystery surrounding it. The handsome strapping fellow, strong, and innocent as the heroes of ancient legend, had been formed in her body. All the men whom she had known in her past life seemed more and more petty and ugly; they were inferior beings, sprung from another race of humanity, the existence of which should be forgotten.

Suddenly a stupid, unforeseen accident plunged her into the darkness of despair. One beautiful morning with the joyous confidence of a young knight setting forth in quest of adventure, the aviator started out in his pursuit machine, rising through the silvery clouds in search of the enemy. Suddenly, he noticed some slight motor trouble--due to the negligence of the mechanics in getting it ready, a matter of slight importance under ordinary circumstances ... and he was forced to descend, absolutely unable to continue his flight, and the wind and bad luck caused him to land within the German lines.

"A hundred yards this side, and he would have landed among his own men.... What can you expect? I was too happy. I had still to learn what misery really means! I confess that at the very first I was almost glad, with the selfish gladness of a mother. A prisoner! It meant that his life would be safe; he wouldn't be killed in an air battle; he was no longer in danger of being crushed to pieces or burned to death under his broken machine. But later on!..."