"Ah, Pierre, you do not love me so very much if you ask that."
"I ask you that," said Pierre, "in order to make you say what I know just as well as you."
"You want me to give you some compliments. But you"ll be neatly caught.
For if you know why I love you, I for my part do not know why."
"You don"t know?" said Pierre in consternation.
"Why no!" (She was laughing in her sleeve.) "And there is no need at all why I should know. When one asks why something is, it means that one is not sure about it, that the thing is not good. Now that I do love, no more why! No more where or when or for, nor how either! My love is, my love is! All beside may exist if it cares to."
Their faces kissed each other. The rain took advantage of that, gliding under the awkward umbrella in order to brush with its fingers their hair and cheeks; between their lips they drank in a little cold drop.
Pierre remarked:
"But the others?"
"What others?" quoth Luce.
"The poor," answered Pierre. "All those who are not us?"
"Let them do as we do! Let them love!"
"And be loved? Luce, all the world can not do that."
"Why, yes!"
"Why, no. You don"t realize the value of the gift you have made me."
"To give one"s heart to love, one"s lips to the beloved is to give one"s eyes to the light; it isn"t giving, it"s taking."
"There are blind people."
"We cannot cure them, Pierrot. Let"s do the seeing for them!"
Pierre remained silent.
"What are you thinking of?" asked she.
"I am thinking that on this day, very far from us, very near, He suffered the Pa.s.sion, He who came on earth to cure the blind."
Luce took his hand:
"Do you believe in Him?"
"No, Luce, I believe no longer. But he remains always the friend of those he has accepted, even once, at his table. And you, do you know him?"
"Hardly," responded Luce. "They never talked to me about him. But without knowing him I love him.... For I know that he loved."
"Not as we do."
"Why not? We ourselves have a poor little heart that knows only how to love you, my love. But He; He loved all of us. But it"s always the same love."
"Would you like we should go tomorrow," asked Pierre, much moved, "in honor of His death?... I was told that they will have fine music at Saint Gervais!"
"Yes, I would love well to go to church with you on that day. I am sure He will give us welcome. And being nearer to Him, one is nearer each to the other."
They fell silent.... Rain, rain, rain. The rain falls. The night falls.
"At this hour tomorrow," said she, "we shall be down there."
The fog was penetrating. She gave a little shudder.
"Darling, you are not cold?" he asked, disquieted.
She rose:
"No, no. Everything is love to me. I love everything and everything loves me. The rain loves me, the wind loves me, the gray sky and the cold--and my little greatly beloved...."
FOR Holy Friday the heavens remained clothed in their long gray veils; but the air was soft and calm. In the streets one saw flowers, jonquils, stocks. Pierre took a few which she kept in her hand. They followed the peaceful Quai des Orfevres and pa.s.sed along the base of pure Notre-Dame.
The charm of the Old City, clothed in a discreet light, surrounded them with its n.o.ble gentleness. On the Place Saint Gervais pigeons flew up under their feet. They followed them with their eyes about the facade of the church; one of the birds settled on the head of a statue. At the top of the steps to the _parvis_ before the church, as they were about to enter, Luce turned about and perceived in the midst of the crowd a few steps away a little girl with reddish hair, about a dozen years old, leaning against the portal, both arms raised above her head, who was looking at them. She had the fine and somewhat archaic face of some little cathedral statue, with an enigmatic smile, graceful, shrewd and tender. Luce smiled also at her while calling Pierre"s attention to her.
But the little girl"s gaze pa.s.sed over her head and suddenly changed to fright. And hiding her face in her hands the child vanished.
"What is the matter with her?" asked Luce.
But Pierre did not look.
They entered. Above their heads the dove was cooing. Last noise from outside. The voices of Paris were quenched. The fresh air ceased. The hangings of the organ, the lofty vaultings, the curtain of stones and sounds parted them from the world.
They installed themselves in one of the side aisles between the second and the third chapel on the left as you enter. In the hollow of a pier both of them crouched, seated on some steps, hidden from the rest of the a.s.sembly. Turning their backs to the choir, on raising their eyes they saw the summit of the altar, the crucifix and the stained windows of a lateral chapel. The beautiful old chants wept out their pious melancholy. They were holding hands, the two little pagans, before the Great Friend, in the church all swathed in mourning. And both of them at the same time murmured in a low voice:
"Great Friend, before your face I take him, I take her. Unite us! You see our hearts."
And their fingers remained joined and interlaced like the straw of a basket. They were one single flesh which the waves of music pa.s.sed through with their shivering notes. They took to dreaming, as if they lay in the same bed.
Luce saw again in her thought that little girl with reddish hair. And behold it seemed to her that she recalled how she had seen her before in a dream the past night. She could not reach the point of knowing whether that was actually true, or if she were projecting the vision of the present back to the past slumber. Then, weary of the effort, her thoughts allowed themselves to float.
Pierre pondered over the days of his short, expended life. The lark that rises from the misty plain to reach the sun.... How far it is! How high it is! Will it ever be reached?... The fog thickens. There is no earth any more, there are no heavens any more. And strength gives out....
Suddenly, while beneath the vault of the choir a Gregorian _vocalise_ trickled down, the jubilant song gushed forth, and out from the shadows emerges the little shivering form of the lark that swims on the sea of light without sh.o.r.e....
A pressure of their fingers recalled to them that they were swimming together. They found themselves again in the darkness of the church, closely pressed together, listening to the beautiful chants; their hearts melted with love and touched the summits of the purest joy. And both of them desired--they prayed--never to descend to earth again.
At that moment Luce, who had just kissed her dear little comrade with a pa.s.sionate glance--(his eyes half closed and his lips parted, he appeared lost in an ecstasy of happiness and raised his head in a rush of thankful joy toward that supreme Power which we look for instinctively on high)--Luce saw with terror, in the red and gilded window of the chapel, the face of the reddish-haired child of the _parvis_ who was smiling at her. And as she sat mute, frozen with astonishment, she saw once more on that strange visage the same expression of fright and of pity.