CHAPTER VII

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Sometimes, when at the edge of the sea, contemplating the unconscious woman standing near the calm and perilous waves, George thought: "I could easily cause her death. She often tries to swim leaning on me. I could easily smother her under the water, let her drown. No suspicion would attach to me; the crime would appear like an accident. Only then, in front of the corpse of the Enemy, should I have an opportunity to find the solution of my problem. Since she is now the centre of all my existence, what change would take place in me after her disappearance? Have I not more than once experienced a feeling of peace and liberty in thinking of her as dead, enclosed forever in the tomb? Perhaps I should succeed in saving myself and reconquering life, if I made the Enemy perish, if I removed the Obstacle." He dwelt on this thought; he tried to construct a representation of his being freed and appeased in a future without love; he took pleasure in enveloping his mistress's sensual body in a fantastic shroud.

Hippolyte was timid in the water. During her swimming lessons she never ventured beyond her depth. A sudden terror seized her when, on resuming the vertical position, she did not at once feel ground under her feet. George urged her to venture, with his help, as far as a rock situated a short distance from the shore, about twenty strokes from her depth. Very slight effort was necessary to swim there.

"Be brave!" he kept repeating, to convince her. "You'll never learn unless you are courageous. I'll stay near you."

Thus he enveloped her with his homicidal thought; and he had a long inner thrill each time, during the incidents of the bath, that he became convinced of the extreme facility with which he could carry his thoughts into effect. But the necessary energy failed him, and he confined himself to proposing the swim to the rock and leaving the rest to chance. In his present, weak condition, he himself would be in peril if Hippolyte, seized by fright, took violent hold of him. But such a probability did not dissuade him from making the attempt; on the contrary, it made him more determined to do so.

"Be brave! Cannot you see that the rock is so near that we can almost touch it with our hands? Swim slowly, by my side. You can rest when you're there. We'll sit down; we'll gather some coral. Come, be brave!"

He dissimulated his own anxiety with difficulty. She resisted, undecided, wavering between fear and caprice.

"Suppose my strength gives out?"

"I'll be there to help you."

"And if your strength isn't sufficient?"

"It will be. You see how close the rock is."

Smiling, she touched her lips with her wet fingers.

"The water is so salt!" she said, pouting.

Then, her last repugnance overcome, she suddenly made up her mind.

"Come! I'm ready."

Her heart did not beat so fast as the heart of her companion. As the water was very calm, almost motionless, the first strokes were easy. But suddenly, through lack of experience, she began to hurry and blow herself. A false movement filled her mouth with water; panic seized her; she cried, struggled, drank in more.

"Help, George! Help!"

Instinctively, he dashed to her aid and caught hold of the shrivelled fingers that clutched him. Under the clutch, and weight, he weakened; and he had a sudden vision of the foreseen end.

"Don't hold me like that!" he cried. "Don't hold me like that! Leave me an arm free!"

The brutal instinct of self-preservation restored his strength. He made an extraordinary effort, swam the short distance with his burden; and he touched the rock, his strength exhausted.

"Cling hold!" he said to Hippolyte, unable to raise her himself.

Finding herself safe, she had recovered her promptness of action; but, barely seated on the rocks, gasping and dripping, she burst into sobs.

She cried violently, like a child; and her sobs exasperated George instead of touching him. He had never seen her cry such a torrent of tears, with such swollen and burning eyes, making such a grimace. He thought her ugly and pusillanimous. He felt an angry rancor toward her, and at heart almost a regret for having given himself that trouble and taken her from the water. He imagined her drowned, disappeared in the sea; he imagined his own emotion on seeing her disappear, and then the signs of grief that he would give in public, his attitude in front of the cadaver cast up by the waves.

Stupefied at seeing herself left to her tears without a consoling word, she turned toward him. She had stopped crying.

"What shall I do to get back?" she asked.

"Make another attempt," he answered, with a touch of mockery.

"No, no; never!"

"What, then?"

"I'll stay here."

"Very well. Addio!"

And he made a gesture as if to dive in the sea.

"Addio! I'll shout. They'll come and rescue me."

She passed from sobbing to laughter, her eyes still full of tears.

"What's that on your arm?" she asked.

"The marks of your nails."

He showed her the bleeding scratches.

"Do they hurt?"

She felt sorry, and stroked the arm with her hand.

"It was your fault--only yours, wasn't it?" she continued. "You made me come. I didn't want to----"

Then, smiling:

"It was perhaps a way to get rid of me?"

A shudder ran through her:

"What a horrible death! The water is so bitter!"

She bent her head down to one side, and felt the water run from her ear, warm as the blood.

The sun-beaten rock was hot, brownish, and slippery, like the back of a living animal; and at its base, it swarmed with infinite life. The green vegetation undulated on the surface of the water with the suppleness of unloosened hair, with a light, splashing sound. The solitary rock, which received the heavenly heat, exercised a sort of seduction, and communicated it to its people of happy creatures.

As if allowing himself to be won by this seduction, George stretched himself out on his back. For a few seconds he applied his consciousness to perceive the vague feeling of comfort that penetrated his wet skin drying in the heat emanated from the stones and in that of the direct rays. Phantoms of distant sensations came back to his memory. The thought of the chaste baths of formerly, of the long apathies on the sand, more ardent and more suave than a female body. Oh! for solitude, liberty, love without the accessories, love for dead or inaccessible women! Hippolyte's presence prohibited forgetfulness, recalled incessantly the image of the physical relation, of the accouplement operated by ignoble organs, of the infecund and sad spasm which had since become the unique manifestation of their love.

"Of what are you thinking?" asked Hippolyte, touching him. "Do you want to stay here?"

He rose. He replied:

"Let's go."

The life of the Enemy was still in his hands. He could still destroy it. He cast a rapid glance around him. A heavy silence hung over the hill and the beach; on the Trabocco, the taciturn fishermen were watching their net.

"Come, be brave!" he repeated, smiling.

"No, no; never again!"

"Let's stay here, then."

"No. Let's call the men of the Trabocco."

"They'll laugh at us."

"Very well! I'll call them myself."

"If you didn't get frightened--if you didn't clutch me so, I should be strong enough to carry you."

"No, no. I want to go back in the fannizza."

She was so determined that George let her have her way. He stood up on the rock, and, making a speaking trumpet of his hands, he called one of Turchin's sons.

"Daniel! Daniel!"

On hearing this repeated shout, one of the fishermen left the capstan, crossed the bridge, climbed down, and began to run along the beach.

"Daniel, bring the _cannizza_."

The man heard, turned back, went toward the boathouse, dragged the little dingy into the water, and, pushing off with a long pole, proceeded towards the rock.

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