CHAPTER IX

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On her return from the chapel of the Port, Hippolyte had heard of the accident. Accompanied by Helen, she had wished to rejoin George on the beach. But when near the tragic spot, at the sight of the cloth that made a white spot on the sand, she had felt her strength fail her. Seized by an outburst of sobs, she had retraced her steps, had gone back to the house, had waited for George, weeping.

She felt less compassion for the little body than she felt for herself, haunted by the recollection of the peril she had so lately incurred at the bath. And an instinctive, indomitable repulsion arose in her against that sea.

"I do not want to bathe in the sea any more. I do not want you to bathe there," she enjoined George, almost roughly, in a tone that expressed a firm, unyielding resolution. "I will not have it. Do you hear?"

They passed the rest of that Sunday in an anxious restlessness, returning ceaselessly to the loggia, to look at the white spot, over there, on the beach. George had the image of the corpse constantly before his eyes so strongly outlined that it seemed to him almost tangible. And in his ears was constantly the cadence of the monody chanted by the mother. Was the mother still lamenting in the shade of the rock? Had she stayed there alone with the sea and the dead? He saw again in imagination another unfortunate. He relived the hour of that May morning, long ago, in the house far away, when he had felt all at once the maternal life come in contact with his own life with a sort of adherence, when he had felt the mysterious correspondences of blood, of sorrow, and of destiny suspended over the heads of both. Would he ever see her again with mortal eyes? Would he ever again see that feeble smile, which, without changing a line of the face, seemed to spread a light veil of hope, too fugitive, alas! over the indelible imprints of pain? Would it be permitted him ever to kiss that long and emaciated hand again, whose caress could be compared to no other? And he relived the distant hour of the tears when, at the window, he had received the terrible revelation from the glimmer of a smile: when he had at last heard the dear voice, the only and unforgettable voice, the voice of comfort, of counsel, of forgiveness, of infinite goodness--when he had at last recognized the tender creature of long ago, the adored one. And he relived the hour of the farewell, the farewell tearless, and yet so cruel, when he had lied for shame on reading in his deceived mother's eyes the too sad question: "For whom are you abandoning me?" And all the past sorrows arose again in his memory, with all their dolorous images: that emaciated face, those swollen eyelids, red and burning, Christine's gentle and heart-rending smile, the sickly child whose large head was always resting on a chest barren of all but sighs, the cadaveric mask of the poor idiotic gormand.... And the tired eyes of his mother repeated: "For whom are you abandoning me?"

He felt himself penetrated by a wave of gentle feeling; he languished, dissolved; he felt a vague desire to bend his forehead, to hide his face on a bosom, to be caressed chastely, to savor slowly this secret bitterness, to doze, to perish gradually. It was as if all the effeminations of his soul had blossomed at the same time, and were floating.

A man passed by on the path, bearing on his head a little white-pine coffin.

Later in the afternoon the Authorities arrived at the beach. The little corpse, lifted up away from the stones, had been carried to the heights, disappeared. Piercing shrieks reached the Hermitage. Then all was quiet. The silence, ascending from the calm sea, regained possession of the surrounding parts.

The sea was so calm, the air was so calm, that life seemed suspended. A bluish light spread uniformly over everything.

Hippolyte had reentered, and had thrown herself on her bed. George remained in the loggia, seated on a chair. Both suffered, and they could not speak of their pain. Time slipped by.

"Did you call me?" asked George, who thought he heard his name.

"No, I didn't call you," she answered.

"What are you doing? Are you going to sleep?"

She did not answer.

George reseated himself, and half-closed his eyes. His thoughts always went back towards the mountain. In this silence, he felt the silence of the solitary and abandoned garden in which the little cypress-trees, tall and straight, reared up motionless toward the sky, religiously, like votive wax candles; from which, through the windows of the deserted chambers, still intact like reliquaries, came a religious sweetness of recollections.

And he appeared to him, a mild, meditative man, with a face full of a virile melancholy, and a single white curl in the centre of his forehead, among the black hair, giving him an odd appearance.

"Oh! why," said he to Demetrius, "why did I not obey your suggestion, the last time I entered the chambers inhabited by your spirit? Why did I wish to make a new trial of life, and cover myself with shame before your eyes? How could I have made the mistake of pursuing the _sure possession_ of another soul, when I possessed yours, and when you lived in me?"

After the physical death, the soul of Demetrius had been preserved in the survivor without any diminution, and in him it had even attained, and retained, its supreme intensity. All that the living person had consumed in contact with his fellows, all the words sown in the course of time, all the diverse manifestations that had determined the special character of his being compared with other beings, all the ways, constant or variable, that had distinguished his personality among other personalities and made of him a man apart in the human multitude; in short, all that had differentiated his own life from other lives--all that was collected, concentrated, circumscribed in the unique, ideal tie that attached the defunct to the survivor. And the divine ostensory preserved in the Duomo of the natal town seemed to consecrate this high mystery: _Ego Demetrius Aurispa et unicus Georgius filius meus_.

The impure creature who was now lying on that unchaste bed had interposed between. The terrible corrupter was not only the obstacle to life, but also an obstacle to death--_to that death_. She was the Enemy of both.

And George, in thought, returned to the mountain, once more reached the old mansion, reentered the deserted rooms. As on that May morning, he crossed the tragic threshold. And, as on that day, he felt the obscure obsession over his will. The fifth anniversary was near. In what manner should he celebrate it?

A sudden cry from Hippolyte made him start violently. He jumped up and ran.

"What's the matter?"

Seated up in bed, terrified, she was passing her hands over her brow and eyelids, as though to thrust off something that tormented her. She fixed large, haggard eyes on her lover. Then, with an abrupt gesture, she threw her arms round his neck, covered his face with kisses and tears.

"What's the matter? What's the matter?" he asked, astonished, uneasy.

"Nothing, nothing----"

"Why are you crying?"

"I had a dream----"

"What did you dream? Tell me!"

Instead of replying, she clasped him close, kissed him again.

He seized her wrists, disengaged himself from her grasp, tried to look in her face.

"Tell me, what did you dream?"

"Nothing--a horrid dream----"

"What kind of dream?"

She resisted his persistence. He, on his part, grew more uneasy as his desire to know became greater.

"Tell me!"

Shaken with another shudder, she stammered:

"I dreamed--that I drew aside the shroud--and I saw--you----"

She smothered this last word in kisses.

*VI.*

*THE INVINCIBLE.*

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