Three Weeks Part 17

That night, as they looked from the loggia on the Grand Ca.n.a.l after dinner, the moonlight making things almost light as day, Dmitry begged admittance from the doorway of the great salon. The lady turned imperiously, and flashed upon him. How dared he interrupt their happy hour with things of earth? Then she saw he was loth to speak before Paul, and that his face was grey with fear.

Paul realised the situation, and moved aside, pretending to lean from the wide windows and watch the pa.s.sing gondolas, his wandering attention, however, fixing itself upon one which was moored not far from the palazzo, and occupied by a solitary figure reclining motionless in the seats. It had no coloured lights, this gondola, or merry musicians; it was just a black object of silence, tenanted by one man.

Dmitry whispered, and the lady listened, a quiver of rage going through her lithe body. Then she turned and surveyed the moored gondola, the same storm of pa.s.sion and hate in her eyes as once before had come there, at the Rigi Kaltbad Belvedere.

"Shall I kill the miserable spy? Vasili would do it this night," she hissed between her clenched teeth. "But to what end? A day's respite, perhaps, and then another, and another to face."

Dmitry raised an imploring hand to draw her from the wide arched opening, where she must be in full view of those watching below. She motioned him furiously aside, and took Paul's hand. "Come, my lover," she said, "we will look no more on this treacherous stream! It is full of the ghosts of past murders and fears. Let us return to our shrine and shut out all jars; we will sit on our tiger and forget even the moon. Beloved one--come!"

And she led him to the open doorway, but the hand which held his was cold as ice.

A tumult of emotion was dominating Paul. He understood now that danger was near--he guessed they were being watched--but by whom? By the orders of--her husband? Ah! that thought drove him mad with rage--her husband!

She--his own--the mate of his soul--of his body and soul--was the legal belonging of somebody else! Some vile man whom she hated and loathed, a "rotting carrion spoiling G.o.d's earth." And he--Paul--was powerless to change this fact--was powerless altogether except to love her and die for her if that would be for her good.

"Queen," he said, his voice hoa.r.s.e with pa.s.sion and pain, "let us leave Venice--leave Europe altogether--let me take you away to some far land of peace, and live there in safety and joy for the rest of our lives. You would always be the empress of my being and soul."

She flung herself on the tiger couch, and writhed there for some moments, burying her clenched fists in the creature's deep fur. Then she opened wide her arms, and drew Paul to her in a close, pa.s.sionate embrace.

"_Moi-Lioubimyi_--My beloved--my darling one!" she whispered in anguish.

"If we were lesser persons--yes, we could hide and live for a time in a tent under the stars--but we are not They would track me, and trap us, and sooner or later there would be the end, the ignominious, ordinary end of disgrace--" Then she clasped him closer, and whispered right in his ear in her wonderful voice, now trembling with love.

"Sweetheart--listen! Beyond all of this there is that thought, that hope, ever in my heart that one day a son of ours shall worthily fill a throne, so we must not think of ourselves, my Paul, of the Thou, and the I, and the Now, beloved. A throne which is filled most ign.o.bly at present, and only filled at all through my birth and my family's influence. Think not I want to plant a cheat. No! I have a right to find an heir as I will, a splendid heir who shall redeem the land--the spirit of our two selves given being by love, and endowed by the G.o.ds. Ah! think of it, Paul. Dream of this joy and pride, it will help to still the unrest we are both suffering now. It must quiet this wild, useless rage against fate. Is it not so, my lover?"

Her voice touched his very heartstrings, but he was too deeply moved to answer her for a moment. The renewal of this thought exalted his very soul. All that was n.o.ble and great in his nature seemed rising up in one glad triumph-song.

A son of his and hers to fill a throne! Ah! G.o.d, if that were so!

"I love the English," she whispered. "I have known the men of all nations--but I love the English best. They are straight and just--the fine ones at least. They are brave and fair--and fearless. And our baby Paul shall be the most splendid of any. Beloved one, you must not think me a visionary--a woman dreaming of what might never be--I see it--I know it.

This will come to pa.s.s as I say, and then we shall both find consolation and rest."

Thus she whispered on until Paul was intoxicated with joy and glory, and forgot time and place and danger and possible parting. A host of triumphant angels seemed singing in his ears.

Then she read him poetry, and let him caress her, and smiled in his arms.

But towards morning, if he had awakened, he would have found his lady prostrate with silent weeping. The intense concentrated grief of a strong nature taking its farewell.

CHAPTER XVIII

Now this Thursday was the night of the full moon. A cloudless morning sky promised a glorious evening.

The lovers woke early, and had their breakfast on the loggia overlooking the oleander garden. The lady was in an enchanting mood of suns.h.i.+ne, and no one could have guessed of the sorrow of her dawn vigil thoughts. She was wayward and playful--one moment petting Paul with exquisite sweetness, the next teasing his curls and biting the lobes of his ears. She never left him for one second--it seemed she must teach him still more subtle caresses, and call forth even new shades of emotion and bliss. All fear was banished, only a brilliant glory remained. She laughed and half-closed her eyes with provoking smiles. She undulated about, creeping as a serpent over her lover, and kissing his eyelids and hair. They were so infinitely happy it was growing to afternoon before they thought of leaving their loggia, and then they started in the open gondola, and glided away through quaint, narrow ca.n.a.ls until they came to the lagoon.

"We shall not stay in the gondola long, my Paul," she said. "I cannot bear to be out of your arms, and our palace is fair. And oh! my beloved, to-night I shall feast you as never before. The night of our full moon!

Paul, I have ordered a bower of roses and music and song. I want you to remember it the whole of your life."

"As though I could forget a moment of our time, my sweet," said Paul. "It needs no feasts or roses--only whatever delights you to do, delights me too."

"Paul," she cooed after a while, during which her hand had lain in his and there had been a soft silence, "is not this a life of joy, so smooth and gliding, this way of Venice? It seems far from ruffles and storms. I shall love it always, shall not you? and you must come back in other years and study its buildings and its history, Paul--with your new, fine eyes."

"We shall come together, my darling," he answered. "I should never want anything alone."

"Sweetheart!" she cooed again in his ears; and then presently, "Paul," she said, "some day you must read 'Salammbo,' that masterpiece of Flaubert's.

There is a spirit of love in that which now you would understand--the love which looked out of Matho's eyes when his body was beaten to jelly. It is the love I have for you, my own--a love 'beyond all words or sense'--as one of your English poets says. Do you know, with the strange irony of things, when a woman's love for a man rises to the highest point there is in it always an element of _the wife_? However wayward and tigerish and undomestic she may be, she then desires to be the acknowledged possession and belonging of the man, even to her own dishonour. She desires to reproduce his likeness, she wants to compa.s.s his material good. She will think of his food, and his raiment, and his well-being, and never of her own--only, if she is wise she will hide all these things in her heart, for the average man cannot stand this great light of her sweetness, and when her love becomes selfless, his love will wane."

"The average man's--yes, perhaps so," agreed Paul. "But then, what does the average person of either s.e.x know of love at all?"

"They think they know," she said. "Really think it, but love like ours happens perhaps once in a century, and generally makes history of some sort--bad or good."

"Let it!" said Paul. "I am like Antony in that poem you read me last night. I must have you for my own, 'Though death, dishonour, anything you will, stand in the way.' He knew what he was talking about, Antony! so did the man who wrote the poem!"

"He was a great sculptor as well as a poet," the lady said. "And yes, he knew all about those wonderful lovers better far than your Shakespeare did, who leaves me quite cold when I read his view of them. Cleopatra was to me so subtle, so splendid a queen."

"Of course she was just you, my heart," said Paul. "You are her soul living over again, and that poem you must give me to keep some day, because it says just what I shall want to say if ever I must be away from you for a time. See, have I remembered it right?

"'Tell her, till I see Those eyes, I do not live--that Rome to me Is hateful,--tell her--oh!--I know not what--That every thought and feeling, s.p.a.ce and spot, Is like an ugly dream where she is not; All persons plagues; all living wearisome; All talking empty...'.

"Yes, that is what I should say--I say it to myself now even in the short while I am absent from you dressing!"

The lady's eyes brimmed with tenderness. "Paul!--you do love me, my own!"

she said.

"Oh, why can't we go on and travel together, darling?" Paul continued. "I want you to show me the world--at least the best of Europe. In every country you would make me feel the spirit of the place. Let us go to Greece, and see the temples and wors.h.i.+p those old G.o.ds. They knew about love, did they not?"

The lady leant back and smiled, as if she liked to hear him talk.

"I often ask myself did they really know," she said. "They knew the whole material part of it at any rate. They were perhaps too practical to have indulged in the mental emotions we weave into it now--but they were wise, they did not educate the wives and daughters, they realised that to perform well domestic duties a woman's mind should not be over-trained in learning.

Learning and charm and grace of mind were for the others, the _hetaerae_ of whom they asked no tiresome ties. And in all ages it is unfortunately not the simple good women who have ruled the hearts of men. Think of Pericles and Aspasia--Antony and Cleopatra--Justinian and Theodora--Belisarius and Antonina--and later, all the mistresses of the French kings--even, too, your English Nelson and Lady Hamilton! Not one of these was a man's ideal of what a wife and mother ought to be. So no doubt the Greeks were right in that principle, as they were right in all basic principles of art and balance. And now we mix the whole thing up, my Paul--domesticity and learning--nerves and art, and feverish cravings for the impossible new--so we get a conglomeration of false proportions, and a ceaseless unrest."

"Yes," said Paul, and thought of his mother. She was a perfectly domestic and beautiful woman, but somehow he felt sure she had never made his father's heart beat. Then his mind went back to the argument in what the lady had said--he wanted to hear more.

"If this is so, that would prove that all the very clever women of history were immoral--do you mean that?" he asked.

The lady laughed.

"Immoral! It is so quaint a word, my Paul! Each one sees it how they will. For me it is immoral to be false, to be mean, to steal, to cheat, to stoop to low actions and small ends. Yet one can be and do all those things, and if one remains as well the faithful beast of burden to one man, one is counted in the world a moral woman! But that s.h.i.+ning light of hypocrisy and virtue--to judge by her sentiments in her writings--your George Eliot, must be cla.s.sed as immoral because, having chosen her mate without the law's blessing, she yet wrote the highest sentiments of British respectability! To me she was being immoral _only_ because she was deliberately doing what--, again I say, judging by her writings--she felt must be a grievous wrong. That is immoral--deliberately to still one's conscience and indulge in a pleasure against it. But to live a life with one's love, if it engenders the most lofty aspirations, to me is highly moral and good. I feel myself enn.o.bled, exalted, because you are my lover, and our child, when it comes to us, will have a n.o.ble mind."

The thought of this, as ever, made Paul thrill; he forgot all other arguments, and a quiver ran through him of intense emotion; his eyes swam and he clasped more tightly her hand. The lady, too, leant back and closed her eyes.

"Oh! the beautiful dream!" she said, "the beautiful, beautiful--certainly!

Sweetheart, let us have done with all this philosophising and go back to our palace, where we are happy in the temple of the greatest of all G.o.ds--the G.o.d of Love!"

Then she gave the order for home.