The Grip of Desire Part 43

"Be mine, be my sister, for I am all thine, And well I deserve thee, for long have I loved."

A. DE VIGNY (_Eloa_).

They were standing up under the dark arbour. One close to the other, excited, panting: they could scarce get their breath again. Does their heart beat so hard because there is someone in the path? Silence!

The cricket, just by their side, sends forth from under the gra.s.s his soft monotonous cry, and down there in the neighbouring ditch the toad lifts his harsh voice. Silence!

A noise in the road, faint at first as the murmur of the wind, increases.

It comes near. It is the cautious hesitating step of someone listening. It comes nearer and stops. Silence! The philosopher cricket continues his song, the amorous toad his poem.

Behind the branches of honeysuckle they watch attentively, and can see without being seen. A shadow pa.s.ses slowly by, with its head turned towards the dark arbour. Suzanne made a movement of surprise;--Your servant, she said.

--Silence, murmured Marcel; and he seizes a hand which he keeps within his own.

Veronica slowly walked on.

When she reached the gate, she pushed it as if to a.s.sure herself if it was open.

--Well, there is an impertinence, said Suzanne. Who can have made her suspect that you were here?

Marcel, for reply, pressed the hand which he was holding.

Finding the gate closed, the servant continued her road, then all at once returned, stopped for a few seconds facing the arbour, and at length disappeared behind the chestnut-trees.

They followed the sound of her footsteps, which was soon lost in the silence, and found themselves alone, hearing nothing but the beatings of their own heart.

--Let us remain, said Suzanne in a low voice, we must not go out yet.

Really, that is the most impertinent creature I have ever seen. By what right does she spy on you thus?

--Dear child, do you not know that these old servants are on the track of every scandal, jealous of all beauty and all virtue. She will have noticed our frequent interviews, and has imagined a world of iniquities.

Nevertheless, I bless her, yes, I bless her, since I owe to her the joy of finding myself in this tete-a-tete with you. See, dear child, how strange is destiny, which is none other but the hand of G.o.d--for we must be blind not to recognize in all these things the finger of divine Providence--it is precisely the efforts made to put an obstacle between us, to prevent us, me from fulfilling my duties of a pastor, you those of a Christian, which have been the cause of our sweet intimacy. Your father forbids you to a.s.sist at the Holy Sacrifice, and you come to me to ask for counsel. This servant pursues us with her envious hate, and obliges us to take refuge like guilty lovers beneath this dark arbour. Almighty G.o.d, thanks, thanks. But what a strange situation! If anyone were to surprise us, the whole world would accuse us, and yet what is surer than our conscience? You see plainly, dear child, that we cannot separate thus, and that, whatever happens, we must not remain strangers to one another.

Suzanne did not answer, and he, emboldened by this silence, pressed between his the hand which she abandoned to him.

--I was so much accustomed to see you in our church that, when you ceased to come there, it seemed to me that everything was in mourning. You were the most charming and the chastest ornament of it. When I went up into the pulpit, it was for you that I preached, and when I turned towards my flock to bless them, it was you alone, sweet lamb, that I blessed in the name of the Father. You understand now, why I shall go away enveloped in sorrow.

--But, sir, I do not deserve the honour which you do me, and I am unworthy to occupy your thoughts in this way.

--Do not say that, for since I have seen you, you have become, without my knowing how, the joy of my life, the source from which I draw my sweetest and most holy pleasures. With the memory of you, I lull myself in the Infinite. I see Heaven and the angels, I dream of Seraphims who resemble you, who bear me on their diaphanous wings into the abode where all is joy and love ... heavenly love, dear Suzanne, love like that of the angels for the Virgin, the mother, eternally pure, of our sweet Saviour. You see, you have no reasons to be offended with my dreams. You are not offended at them, are you?

--Why should I be offended at them, said Suzanne softly. Can one be offended with dreams?

--You remember that night, when, alone as we are now, I allowed myself in a moment of pious transport, to bear to my lips your lovely hand. I have often blushed at it.... I have blushed at it, because I thought that you might have mistaken that respectful kiss. I kissed it as I should have kissed the hem of a queen's robe, if that queen had been a saint, as I should have kissed the feet of the Virgin, as Magdalena kissed those of Christ, as I kiss it at this moment, dear, dear Suzanne.

And his lips rested on that little warm, quivering, feverish hand, and they could no more be separated from it.

And, when at length he withdrew his mouth from it, he found that Suzanne was so near to him that he heard the beatings of her heart.

--Leave me, said the imprudent girl, I entreat you, leave me. Oh, why are you doing that?

And she tried with vain efforts to loosen herself from the embrace.

But he murmured softly:

--Leave you, oh, never; you shall be my companion in life as you are my betrothed before the Eternal. Leave you, dear Suzanne, sweet mystic rose, chosen vessel. See, there is something stronger than all the laws and all the proprieties; it is a look from you. Why do you repulse me? I speak to you as to the Virgin, and I kiss your knees. Chaste betrothed of the Levite, let me espouse you before G.o.d.

She struggled with all her might, excited and maddened. But what can the dove do in the talons of the hawk! Pressed to his breast by his vigorous arms, it was in vain that she asked for pity. h.e.l.l might have opened, ere he would have dropped his prey.

The struggle lasted several minutes, pa.s.sionate, silent, ardent. Woman is weak. Soon nothing was heard ... a sob ... and all died away in the dense shade.

The startled cricket was silent, and it alone might have counted the sighs, while in the neighbouring ditch the toad unwearied continued its love-song.

LXXIII.

AUDACES FORTUNA JUVAT.

"If you have done wrong, rebuke yourself sharply: If you have done well, have satisfaction."

SAINT FRANcOIS DE SALLES (_Traite de l'Amour Divin_).

Marcel reached the parsonage without hindrance. Veronica had not yet returned. He congratulated himself on that, and went up the stair-case which led to his room with the light step of a happy man, locked his door, and began to laugh like a madman.

Everything was safe; only there was down there in a corner of the village, an honour lost.

--Is it really you, Marcel, is it really you, he said, who have just played so great a game, and won the trick?

And he laughed, and he rubbed his hands, and he would willingly have danced a wild saraband, if he had not been afraid of making a noise.

He listened in the next room where his uncle was in bed, and heard his loud breathing.

--And the hag who is watching still beneath the limes! And the father who is at Vic, and who, I doubt not, is snoring too. Come, all goes well! all goes well!

But he stopped, ashamed of himself.

--Decidedly, he said to himself, I have become in a few days utterly bad. I did not believe that it was possible to make such rapid progress in evil.

But nonsense. Is it evil? Has not G.o.d made wine to be drunk, flowers to be plucked, and women to be loved? As to that weather-beaten old soldier, why should I feel any pity on his account? He has been insolent, he has detested me without my ever having done anything to him; I have loved his daughter, his daughter has loved me, we are quits. I do not see why I should distress myself about an adventure which would make so many people happy, and for which all my brethren would have very quickly sold the sacred Host and the holy Pyx besides. Ah, my dear uncle, good father Ridoux, sleep, sleep in peace. How greatly am I your debtor for what you have done for me, unwittingly and in spite of yourself; for, have you not, by urging me to drink more than is my custom, in order to draw my secret from me, given me the courage to undertake what I should never have dared to dream of? _Audaces fortuna juvat_. Oh, Providence! Providence! She is mine, the girl with the dark eyes is mine!

He heard a slight noise in the corridor.

--Good never comes alone, he continued, it always has evil for an escort.

Behind the sweet form of the angel, the grinning face of Satan. He is coming upstairs and knocks at the door.

He had not lighted his lamp again, and he carefully refrained from answering. He heard Veronica, trying to open the door and calling him in a low voice. But he pretended to be deaf, and quietly got into bed, all the while cursing his accomplice, and thinking of the clumsy trap into which he had fallen like a fool, and of that thick and filthy spider's web where, like an unwary and silly fly, he had daubed his wings.

What a difference between the chaste resistance of Suzanne, her tears and her defeat, and the hideous advances of that old courtesan of the sacristy!