But when she said, "No! I am not joking, I mean it," I felt there was more meaning in her sentence than I had at first thought. I begged to be enlightened, and she then unfolded her scheme.
She told me for the first time, that in a forest not far from Bruges she had a little summer-house, to which she used to retreat for week-ends in the hot weather when the Colonel was away. He knew nothing of this country house (she was very insistent on that point), so I imagined she paid for it out of her dress allowance or in some other way. The idea that had just struck her was that she had a sudden fancy to go and spend two days there, and I was to go with her.
I was ready to go to Africa with her if my leave permitted, and it so happened that I was due for four days" overseas leave (limited to Belgian territory) so that this fitted in very well, and I told her so.
She was delighted, then, with one of those quick intuitions which women are so clever at, she read the half-formed thought in my mind, and said: "You mustn"t think it"s not going to be conventional; old Babette will be with us to chaperon me." Old Babette is an aged female whom she calls her maid. I think she is jealous of me.
I agreed at once that of course I quite understood it was to be highly conventional, etc., though I smiled to myself as I visualized my mother"s shocked face and uplifted hands had she heard my Zoe"s ideas on the conventions.
I was trying to fathom what was at the bottom of it all when she remarked: "Of course, as my prisoner you will have to obey all my orders."
I replied that this was certainly so.
"And one of the first things," she continued, "that happens to a prisoner when he goes through the enemy lines is that he is blindfolded, and in the same way I shan"t let you know where you are going."
Seeing a doubtful look in my eyes as I endeavoured to keep pace with the underlying idea, if any, of this truly feminine fancy, she suddenly came up to me and, lifting her eyes to mine, murmured: "Don"t you trust me?"
In a moment my pa.s.sion flared up, and rained hot kisses on her face as she struggled to release herself from my arms.
When I left that night after dinner, and, walking on air, returned to the Mess, it was arranged that I should be at her flat with my suit-case at 6 p.m. the next evening, prepared, to use her own words, "to disappear with me for 48 hours."
She had told me of an address in Bruges which she said would forward on any telegram if I was recalled, and I had to be satisfied with that, for I may as well say here that I never discovered where I went to, and I don"t know to this moment in what part of Belgium I spent the last two nights.
I tried to find out at first, but as she obviously attached some importance to keeping the locality of her woodland retreat a secret, probably to circ.u.mvent the Colonel, I soon gave up trying to get the secret from her, and contented myself with taking things as they came.
To go on with my account of what happened--which was really so remarkable that I propose writing it out in detail to the best of my memory--at 6 p.m. next day I was naturally at her flat feeling very much as if I was on the threshold of an adventure.
Zoe was excited and the flat was in a turmoil, as apparently she had only just begun to pack her dressing-case.
Soon after six we went down and got into a large Mercedes car which I had noticed standing outside when I arrived. We were soon on our way, and left Bruges by the Eastern barrier; we showed our pa.s.ses and proceeded into the darkened country-side. We had been running for about a mile when she remarked, "Prisoners will now be blindfolded!" and, to my astonishment, slipped a little black silk bag over my head.
I was so startled I didn"t know whether to be angry, or to laugh, or what to do. Eventually I did nothing, and, entering into the spirit of the game, declared that even a wretched prisoner had the right not to be stifled, whereupon she lifted the lower portion of the bag and uncovered my mouth. Shortly afterwards I was electrified to feel a pair of soft lips meet mine, a sensation which was repeated at frequent intervals, and, as I whispered in her ear, under these conditions I was prepared to be taken prisoner into the jaws of h.e.l.l.
This pleasant journey had lasted for about three-quarters of an hour when my mask was removed and I was informed that I was "inside the enemy lines!" Through the windows of the car I could dimly see that an apparently endless ma.s.s of fir trees were rushing past on each side. This state of affairs continued for a kilometre or so, when we branched to the right and soon entered a large clearing in the forest, at one side of which stood the house. Babette, Zoe and myself entered the building, and the car disappeared, presumably back to Bruges.
The house, built of logs, was of two stories; on the ground floor were two living rooms, and the domains of Babette, who amongst her other accomplishments turned out to be not only a most capable valet, but a first-cla.s.s cook. On the second story there were two large rooms. The whole house was furnished after the manner of a hunting lodge, with stags" heads on the walls, and skins on the floors. In the drawing-room there was a piano and a few etchings of the wild boar by Schaffein.
I dressed for dinner in my "smoking," though under ordinary circ.u.mstances I should have considered this rather formal, but I was glad I did, for she appeared in full evening tenue. She wore a violet gown, and across her forehead a black satin bandeau with a Z in diamonds upon it. It must have cost two thousand marks, and I wondered with a dull kind of jealousy whether the Colonel had given it to her.
I cannot remember of what we talked during dinner. We have a hundred subjects in common, and we look at so many aspects of the world through the same pair of eyes; I only know that when I have been talking to her for a period--there is no exact measurement of time for me when I am with her--I leave her presence feeling "completed." I feel that a sort of gap within my being has been filled, that a spiritual hunger has been satisfied, that I have got something which I wanted, but for which I could not have formulated the desire in words. I had resolved that on this first night I would bring matters between us to a head and end this delicious but intolerable uncertainty as to how we stood; yet, when old Babette had served us with coffee in the drawing-room, as I call the second living-room, and we were alone together, I could not bring up the subject. Partly because I think she prevented me so doing by that skilful shepherding of the conversation into other paths with an artfulness with which G.o.d endows all women, and also partly because I could not screw myself up to the pitch. I could not, or rather would not, put my fate to the touch. I had a presentiment that in reaching for the summit I might fall from the slope. Alas! how true was this foreboding in some senses--but I will keep all things in their right order.
Let it only be recorded that when she kissed me good-night (with the tenderness of a mother) and left me to smoke a final cigar I had said nothing, and I could only wonder at the strange fate that had placed me practically alone with a girl whom I had grown to love with a deep emotion, and who appeared to love me, yet often behaved as if I was her brother.
The next day we were like two children. The snow was deep on the ground, and the fir trees stood like thousands of sentinels in grey uniform round the clearing. Once during the afternoon, as with Zoe"s a.s.sistance I was furiously chopping wood for the fire, a droning noise made me look up, and thousands of metres overhead a small squadron of aeroplanes, evidently bound for the Western Front, sailed slowly across the sky. I thought how awkward it would be for them if they experienced an engine failure whilst over the forest, though they were up so high that I imagine they could have glided ten kilometres, and as I think (but I am not certain, and I have pledged myself not to try and find out) we were in the Forest of Montellan, which is barely fifteen kilometres broad, I suppose they could have fallen clear of the trees.
As a matter of fact I imagine they would have used our clearing--I"m glad they didn"t.
That night after dinner she played to me, first Beethoven and then Chopin. I can see her as I write; she had just finished the 14th Prelude and, resting her chin on her hand, she smiled mysteriously at me.
The hour had come, and, driven by strong impulses, I spoke. I told her that I loved her as I had never thought that a man could love a woman; I told her that I longed to shield her and protect her, and above all things to remove her from the clutches of that b.e.s.t.i.a.l Colonel, and as I bent over her and felt my senses swim in the subtleties of her perfume, I begged her pa.s.sionately to say the word that would give me the right to fight the world on her behalf.
When I had finished she was silent for a long while, and I can remember distinctly that I wondered whether she could hear the thump! thump! thump! of my heart, which to my agitated mind seemed to beat with the strength of a hammer.
At length she spoke; two words came slowly from her lips:
"I cannot."
I was not discouraged. I could see, I could feel, that a tremendous struggle was raging, the outward signs of which were concealed by her averted head.
At length I asked her point-blank whether she loved me. Her silence gave me my answer, and I took her unresisting body into my arms and kissed her to distraction. Oh! these kisses, how bitter they seem to me now, and yet how I long to hold her once again. For, freeing herself from my embrace and speaking almost mechanically, she said:
"Karl! I must tell you. I cannot marry you."
I pleaded, I prayed, I argued, I demanded. It was in vain; I always came up against the immovable "I cannot."
And then I crashed over the precipice towards whose edge I had been blindly going. I had said for the hundredth time, "But you know you love me," when with a sob she abandoned all reserve, and, flinging her arms round my neck, implored me to take her. Then, as I caught my breath, she quickly said, as if frightened that she had gone too far, "But I cannot marry you."
I looked down into those beautiful eyes, and for the first time I understood. For perhaps ten seconds I battled for my soul and the purity of our love; then, tearing my sight from those eyes which would lure an archangel to destruction, I was once more master of my body. As my resolution grew, I hated her for doing this thing that had wrecked in an instant the hopes of months, the ideals on which I had begun to build afresh my life.
She felt the change, and left me.
As she went out by the door she gave me one last look, a look in which love struggled with shame, a look which no man has ever earned the right to receive from any woman.
But I was as a statue of marble, dazed by this calamity.
As the door closed upon her, I started forward--it was too late.
Had she waited another instant--but there, I write of what has happened and not what might have been.
I did not sleep that night, until the dawn began to separate each fir tree from the black ma.s.s of the forest. Twice in the night, with shame I confess it, I opened my door and looked down the little pa.s.sage-way; and twice I closed the door and threw myself upon my bed in an agony of torment. It was ten o"clock when a knock at the door aroused me, and the sunlight through the window-pane was tracing patterns on the floor.
There was a note on the breakfast table, but before I opened it I knew that, save for Babette, I was alone in the house.
The note was brief, unaddressed and unsigned. I have it here before me; I have meant to tear it up but I cannot. It is a weakness to keep it, but I have lost so much in the last few days, that I will not grudge myself some small relic of what has been. The note says:
"I am leaving for Bruges at half-past eight, when the car was ordered to fetch us back. I go alone. Babette will give you breakfast. The car will return for you at eleven o"clock. I rely on your honour in that you will not observe where you have been. Come to me when you want me--till then, farewell."
It was as she said, and I honourably acceded to her request. This afternoon just before lunch I arrived in Bruges, and since tea-time I have tried to write down what has happened since I left the day before yesterday. Oh! how could she do it, how can it be possible that she is a woman like that? I could have sworn that she was not like this--and yet how can I account for her life with the Colonel? There must be some reason, but in Heaven"s name, what?
Meanwhile I am to go to her when I want her! And that will be when I can give her my name. But oh! Zoe, I want you now, so badly, oh! so badly!
I saw her once to-day in the gardens, walking by herself.
I have told Max"s secretary that I want to get to sea; to be here in Bruges and not to see her is more than I can bear.