He could not open the gate, and the lock creaked. Irritated by the sound, she said:
"Open it, do: the noise is getting on my nerves."
She noticed that the cab which had come from Paris had stopped near their house, at about the tenth tree from where she stood; she looked at the thin, steaming horse and the shabby driver, and asked:
"What is that carriage?"
"It"s a cab, my pet."
"Why does it stop here?"
"It has not stopped here? It"s stopping in front of the next house."
"There is no next house; there"s only a vacant lot."
"Well, then, it has stopped in front of a vacant lot. What more can I tell you?"
"I don"t see anyone getting out of it."
"The driver is perhaps waiting for a fare."
"What, in front of a vacant lot!"
"Probably, my dear. This lock has got rusty."
She crept along, hiding herself behind the trees, toward the spot where the cab had stopped, and then returned to Ligny, who had succeeded in unlocking the gate.
"Robert, the blinds of the cab are down."
"Well, then, there"s a loving couple inside."
"Don"t you think there"s something queer about that cab?"
"It is not a thing of beauty, but all cabs are ugly. Come in."
"Isn"t somebody following us?"
"Whom do you expect to follow us?"
"I don"t know. One of your women friends."
But she was not saying what was in her thoughts.
"Do come in, my darling."
When she had entered the garden she said:
"Be sure to close the gate properly, Robert."
Before them stretched a small oval gra.s.s-plot.
Behind it stood the house, with its flight of three steps, sheltered by a zinc portico, its six windows, and its slate roof.
Ligny had rented it for a year from an old merchant"s clerk, who had wearied of it because nocturnal prowlers used to steal his fowls and rabbits. On either side of the gra.s.s-plot a gravel path led to the steps. They took the path on the right. The gravel creaked beneath their feet.
"Madame Simonneau has forgotten to close the shutters again," said Ligny.
Madame Simonneau was a woman from Neuilly, who came every morning to clean up.
A large Judas-tree, leaning to one side, and to all appearance dead, stretched one of its round black branches as far as the portico.
"I don"t quite like that tree," said Felicie; "its branches are like great snakes. One of them goes almost into our room."
They went up the three front steps; and, while he was looking through his bunch of keys for the key of the front door, she rested her head on his shoulder.
Felicie, when unveiling her beauty, displayed a serene pride which made her adorable. She revealed such a quiet satisfaction in her nudity that her chemise, when it fell to her feet, made the onlooker think of a white peac.o.c.k.
And when Robert saw her in her nakedness, bright as the streams or stars, he said:
"At least you don"t make one badger you! Its curious: there are women, who, even if you don"t ask them for anything, surrender themselves completely, go just as far as it"s possible to go, yet all the time they won"t let you see so much as a finger-breadth of skin."
"Why?" asked Felicie, playing with the airy threads of her hair.
Robert de Ligny had experience of women. Yet he did not realize what an insidious question this was. He had received some training in moral science, and in replying he derived inspiration from the professors whose cla.s.ses he had attended.
"It is doubtless a matter of training, religious principles, and an innate feeling which survives even when----"
This was not at all what he ought to have replied, for Felicie, shrugging her shoulders, and placing her hands upon her smoothly polished hips, interrupted him sharply:
"Well, you are simple! It"s because they"ve got bad figures! Training!
Religion! It makes me boil to hear such rubbish! Have I been brought up any worse than other women? Have I less religion than they have? Tell me, Robert, how many really well-made women have you ever seen? Just reckon them up on your fingers. Yes, there are heaps of women who won"t show their shoulders or anything. Take f.a.gette; she won"t let even women see her undress; when she puts a clean chemise on she holds the old one between her teeth. Sure enough, I should do the same if I were built as she is!"
She relapsed into silence, and, with quiet arrogance, slowly ran the palms of her hands over her sides and her loins, observing proudly:
"And the best of it is that there"s not too much of me anywhere."
She was conscious of the charm imparted to her beauty by the graceful slenderness of her outlines.
Now her head, thrown back on the pillow, was bathed in the ma.s.ses of her golden tresses, which lay streaming in all directions; her slender body, slightly raised by a pillow slipped beneath her loins, lay motionless at full length; one gleaming leg was extended along the edge of the bed, ending in a sharply chiselled foot like the point of a sword. The light from the great fire which had been lit in the fireplace gilded her flesh, casting palpitating lights and shadows over her motionless body, clothing it in mystery and splendour, while her outer clothing and her underlinen, lying on the chairs and the carpet, waited, like a docile flock.
She raised herself on her elbow, resting her cheek in her hand.
"You are the first, really you are, I am not lying: the others don"t exist."
He felt no jealousy in respect of the past; he had no fear of comparisons. He questioned her:
"Then the others?"