Ligny was under the spell of this beautiful illusion.
"You are marvellous!"
"Listen, p.u.s.s.y-cat. I shall wear a big lawn bonnet with lappets, one above the other, on either side of my face. You see, in the play I am a young girl of the Revolution. And it is imperative that I should make people feel it. I must have the Revolution _in_ me, do you understand?"
"Are you well up in the Revolution?"
"Of course I am! I don"t know the dates, to be sure. But I have the feeling of the period. For me, the Revolution means a bosom swelling with pride under a crossed neckerchief, knees enjoying full freedom in a striped petticoat, and a tiny blaze of colour on the cheek-bones. There you have it!"
He asked her questions about the play, and he realized that she knew nothing about it. She, did not need to know anything about it. She divined, she found by instinct all that she needed from it.
"At rehearsals, I never give them a hint as to any of my effects, I keep them all for the public. It will make Romilly tear his hair. How stupid they"ll all look! f.a.gette, my dear, will make herself ill over it."
She sat down on a little rickety chair. Her forehead, but a moment before as white as marble, was rosy; she had once more a.s.sumed her cheeky flapper"s expression.
He drew near to her, gazed into the fascinating grey of her eyes, and, as on the evening before, when he sat in front of his c.o.ke-fire, he reflected that she was untruthful and cowardly, and ill-natured toward her friends; but now the thought was tempered with indulgence. He reflected that she had love-affairs with actors of the lowest type, or that she at least made shift with them; but the thought was tempered with a gentle pity. He recalled all the evil that he knew of her, but without bitterness. He felt that he loved her, less because she was pretty than because she was pretty in her own fashion; in a word, that he loved her because she was a gem endowed with life, and an incomparable thing of art and voluptuousness. He looked into the fascinating grey of her eyes, into their pupils, where tiny astrological symbols seemed to float in a luminous tide. He gazed at her with a gaze so searching that she felt it pierce right through her. And, a.s.sured that he had seen right into her, she said to him, with her eyes on his, clasping his head between her two hands:
"Oh yes! I"m a rotten little actress; but I love you, and I don"t care a rap for money. And there aren"t many as good as me. And you know it well enough."
CHAPTER XV
They met daily at the theatre, and they went for walks together.
Nanteuil was playing almost every night, and was eagerly working at her part of Cecile. She was gradually recovering her peace of mind; her nights were less disturbed; she no longer made her mother hold her hand while she fell asleep and no longer found herself suffocating in nightmares. A fortnight went by in this fashion. Then, one morning, while sitting at her dressing-table, combing her hairs she bent her head toward the gla.s.s, as the weather was overcast, and she saw in it, not her own face, but the face of the dead man. A thread of blood was trickling from one corner of his mouth; he was smiling and gazing at her.
Thereupon she decided to do what she thought would be the proper and efficacious thing. She took a cab and drove off to see him. Going down the Boulevard Saint-Michel she bought a bunch of roses at her florist"s.
She took them to him. She went down on her knees before the tiny black cross which marked the spot where they had laid him. She spoke to him, she begged him to be reasonable, to leave her in peace. She asked his forgiveness for having treated him formerly with harshness. People did not always understand one another in life. But now he ought to understand and forgive her. What good did it do to him to torment her?
She asked no better than to retain a kindly memory of him. She would come and see him from time to time. But he must cease to persecute and frighten her.
She sought to flatter and soothe him with gentle phrases.
"I can understand that you wanted to revenge yourself. It was natural.
But you are not wicked at heart. Don"t be angry any more. Don"t frighten me any more. Don"t come to see me any more. I"ll come to you; I"ll come often. I"ll bring you flowers."
She longed to deceive him, to soothe him with lying promises, to say to him "Stay where you are; do not be restless any longer; stay where you are, and I swear to you that I will never again do anything to offend you; I promise to submit to your will." But she dared not lie over a grave, and she was sure that it would be useless, that the dead know everything.
A little wearied, she continued awhile, more indolently, her prayers and supplications, and she realized that she no longer felt the horror with which the tombs had formerly inspired her; that she had no fear of the dead man. She sought the reason for this, and discovered that he did not frighten her because he was not there.
And she mused:
"He is not there; he is never there; he is everywhere except where they laid him. He is in the streets, in the houses, in the rooms."
And she rose to her feet in despair, feeling sure that henceforth she would meet him everywhere except in the cemetery.
CHAPTER XVI
After a fortnight"s patience Ligny urged her to resume their former intercourse. The period which she herself had fixed had elapsed. He would not wait any longer. She suffered as much as he did in refusing herself to him. But she dreaded to see the dead man return. She found lame excuses for postponing appointments; at last she confessed that she was afraid. He despised her for displaying so little common sense and courage. He no longer felt that she loved him, and he spoke harshly to her, but he pursued her incessantly with his desire.
Bitter days and barren hours followed. As she no longer dared to seek the shelter of a roof in his company, they used to take a cab, and after driving for hours about the outskirts of the city they would alight in some gloomy avenue, wandering far down it under the bitter east wind, walking swiftly, as though chastised by the breath of an unseen wrath.
Once, however, the weather was so mild that it filled them with its soft languor. Side by side they trod the deserted paths of the Bois de Boulogne. The buds, which were beginning to swell on the tips of the slender black branches, dyed the tree-tops violet under the rosy sky. To their left stretched the fields, dotted with clumps of leafless trees, and the houses of Auteuil were visible. Slowly driven coupes, with their elderly pa.s.sengers, crawled along the road, and the wet-nurses pushed their perambulators. A motor-car broke the silence of the Bois with its humming.
"Do you like those machines?" asked Felicie.
"I find them convenient, that"s all."
It was true that he was no chauffeur. He had no taste for any kind of sport; he concerned himself only with women.
Pointing to a cab which had just pa.s.sed them, she exclaimed:
"Robert, did you see?"
"No."
"Jeanne Perrin was in it with a woman."
And, as he displayed a calm indifference, she added in a reproachful tone:
"You are like Dr. Socrates. Do you think that sort of thing natural?"
The lake slept, bright and serene, within its sombre walls of pines.
They took the path to their right, which skirted the bank where the white geese and swans were preening their feathers. At their approach a flotilla of ducks, like living hulls, their necks curving like prows, set sail toward them.
Felicie told them, in a regretful tone, that she had nothing to give them.
"When I was little," she went on to say, "Papa used to take me out on Sundays to feed the animals. It was my reward for having learned my lessons well all the week. Papa used to delight in the country. He was fond of dog, horses, all animals in fact. He was very gentle and very clever. He used to work very hard. But life is difficult for an officer who has no money of his own. It grieved him sorely not to be able to do as the wealthy officers did, and then he didn"t hit it off with Mamma.
Papa"s life was not a happy one. He was often wretched. He didn"t talk much; but we two understood one another without speaking. He was very fond of me. Robert, dearest, later on, in the distant future, the very distant future, I shall have a tiny house in the country. And when you come there, my beloved, you will find me in a short skirt, throwing corn to my fowls."
He asked her what gave her the idea of going on the stage.
"I knew very well that I"d never find a husband, since I had no dowry.
And from what I saw of my older girl friends, working at dress-making or in a telegraph office, I was not encouraged to follow in their steps.
When I was quite a little girl I thought it would be nice to be an actress. I had once acted, at my boarding-school, in a little play, on St. Nicholas" Day. I thought it no end of a lark. The schoolmistress said I didn"t act well, but that was because Mamma owed her for a whole term. From the time I was fifteen I began to think seriously about going on the stage. I entered the Conservatoire, I worked, I worked very hard.
It"s a back-breaking trade. But success brings rest."
Opposite the chalet on the island they found the ferry-boat moored to the landing. Ligny jumped into it, pulling Felicie after him.
"Those tall trees are lovely, even without leaves," she said. "But I thought the chalet was closed at this time of the year."
The ferryman told them that, on fine winter days, people out for a walk liked to visit the island, because they could enjoy quiet there, and that he had only just ferried a couple of ladies across.