A few kisses--on her hand; a few kind words; many many cruel jests, such as come from a chum conscious of superiority ... that was all he had won after months and months and months of a.s.siduous courtship, months of disobedience to his mother, in whose house he had been living like a stranger, without affection, at daggers" points; months of exposure to the criticism of his enemies, who suspected him of a liaison with the "chorus girl" and were raising their brows, horror-stricken, in the name of morality. How they would scoff, if they knew the truth! Those addlepates down at the Club were always boasting of their amorous adventures, which began inevitably with the sudden physical attack and ended in easy triumph.
With the Spaniard"s mortal dread of looking ridiculous, Rafael began to a.s.sure himself that those brutes were right--that such was the road to a woman"s heart. He had been too respectful, too humble, gazing at Leonora, timidly, submissively, from afar, as an idolater might look at an ikon. Bosh! Wasn"t he a man, and isn"t the man the stronger? Some show of a male authority, that was what she needed! He liked her! Well, that was the end of it! His she must be! Besides, since she treated him so kindly, she surely loved him! A few scruples perhaps! But that would be nothing, before a show of real manhood!
Just as this valorous decision had emerged in the full splendor of its dignity from the mess of vacillation in his weak, irresolute character, Rafael heard voices down the road. He jumped to his feet. Leonora was approaching, followed by the two peasant women, who were bent low under their heavily laden baskets.
"Here, too!" the actress exclaimed with a laugh that rippled charmingly under the white skin of her throat. "You are getting to be my shadow. In the market place, on the road, everywhere! I find you every time I look around!"
She accepted the bouquet of violets from the young man"s hand, inhaling their fragrance with evidence of keen enjoyment.
"Thanks, Rafael, they are the first I have seen this season. My beautiful, faithful old friend! Springtime! You have brought her to me this year, though I felt her coming days before! I am so happy--can"t you see? I feel as though I"d been a silkworm all winter, coiled up in a coc.o.o.n, and had now suddenly grown my wings! And I"m going to fly out over this great green carpet, so sweet with its first perfumes! Don"t you feel as I do, Rafael?..."
Rafael, gravely, said he did. He, too, felt a seething in his blood, the nip of life in every one of his pores! And his eyes ran over the bare neck in front of him, a neck of such tempting smoothness, its white beauty set off by the red kerchief; and over the violets resting on that strong, robust bosom. The two orchard women exchanged a shrewd smile, a meaningful wink, at sight of Rafael, and went on ahead of their mistress, with the evident design of not disturbing the couple by their presence; but Leonora caught the look on their faces.
"Yes, go right on," she said. "We"ll take our time, but we"ll be there soon!"
And when they were out of hearing she resumed, pointing to the women with her closed parasol:
"Did you see that? Didn"t you notice their smiles and the winks they exchanged when they saw you on the road?... Oh, Rafael! You are blind as a bat! And no good is going to come of it! If I had any reputation to lose, I"d be mighty careful with a friend like you! What do you suppose they are thinking?"
And she laughed with a pout of condescension, as though for her part, she did not care what people might be saying about her friendship with Rafael.
"On the market-place all the huckstresses talk to me about you, with the idea of flattering me. They a.s.sure me we"d make a wonderful couple. My kitchen woman seizes every opportunity to tell me how handsome you are.
You ought to thank her.... Even my aunt, my poor aunt, with one leg in the grave, drew it out the other day to say to me: "Do you notice that Rafael visits us quite frequently? Do you think he wants to marry you?"
Marry, you see! Ha, ha, ha! Marry! That"s all poor auntie can see in the world for a woman!"
And she went on gaily chattering like a wild bird escaped from a cage and happy at its liberty, though her frank, mocking laughter was in strange contrast with the expression of sinister determination on Rafael"s face.
"But how glum and queer you look today! Are you ill?... What"s the matter?"
Rafael took advantage of this opening. Ill, yes! Sick with love! He knew the whole place was gossiping about them. But it wasn"t his fault. He simply couldn"t hide his feelings. If she only realized what that mute adoration was costing him! He had tried to root the thought of her out of his mind, but that had been impossible. He must see her, hear her! He lived for her alone. Study? Impossible! Play, with his friends? They had all become obnoxious to him! His house was a cave, a cellar, a place to eat in and sleep in. He left it the moment he got out of bed, and kept away from the city, too, which seemed stuffy, oppressive, like a jail to him. Off to the fields; to the orchards, to the Blue House where she lived! He would wait and wait for afternoon to come--the time when, by a tacit arrangement neither of them had proposed, he might enter her orchard and find her on the bench under the four dead palms!... Well, he could not go on living that way. Poor folks envied him his power, because he was a deputy, at twenty-five! And yet his one purpose in life was to be ... well, she could guess what ... that garden bench, for instance, gently, deliciously burdened with her weight for whole afternoons; or that needlework which played about in her soft fingers; or one of her servants, Beppa, perhaps, who could waken her in the morning, bend low over her sleeping head, and smooth the loose tresses spread like rivulets of gold over the white pillow. A slave, an animal, a thing even, provided it should be in continuous contact with her person--that was what he longed to be; not to find himself obliged, at nightfall, to leave her after a parting absurdly prolonged by childish pretexts, and return to his irritating, common, vulgar life at home, to the solitude of his room, where he imagined he could see a pair of green eyes staring at him from every dark corner, tempting him.
Leonora was not laughing. Her gold-spotted eyes had opened wide; her nostrils were quivering with emotion. She seemed deeply moved by the young man"s eloquent sincerity.
"Poor Rafael! My poor dear boy!... And what are we going to do?"
Down at the Blue House, Rafael had never dared speak so openly. The presence of Leonora"s servants; the nonchalant, mocking air with which she welcomed him at the door; the irony with which she met his every hint at a declaration had always crushed, humiliated him. But there, on the open highway, it was different somehow. He felt free. He would empty his whole heart out.
What anguish! Every day he went to the Blue House trembling with hope, enthralled in his dream of love! "Perhaps it will be today," he would say to himself each time. And his legs would give way at the knees, and he would choke as he swallowed! Then, hours later, at nightfall, he would slink home, downcast, dispirited, desperate, staggering along the road under the star-light as if he were drunk, repressing the tears burning in his eyes, longing for the peace of death, like a weary explorer who must go on and on breaking his way over one ice-field after another. She must have noticed, surely! She must have seen the untiring efforts he made to please her!... Ignorant, humble, recognizing the vast gulf that separated them because of the different lives they had led, how he had worked to raise himself to a level with the men who had loved and won her! If she spoke of the Russian count--a model of stylish elegance--the next day, to the great astonishment of his mother, Rafael would take out his best clothes and, all sweating in the hot sun and nearly strangled by a high collar, he would set out along that same road--his Road to Calvary--walking on his toes like a boarding-school girl in order not to get his shoes dirty. If Hans Keller had come to Leonora"s mind, he would run through his histories of music, and dressing up like some artist he had read about in novels, would come to her house fully intending to deliver an oration on the immortal Master, Wagner, whom he knew nothing at all about, but whom he adored as a member of his family.... Good G.o.d! All that was ridiculous, he knew very well; it would have been far better to present himself just as he was, undisguised, in all his littleness. He knew that this pretending to equality with the thousand or more figures flitting in Leonora"s memory, was grotesque. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing he would not do to stir her heart a little, be loved for a day, a minute, a second--and then die!...
There was a note of such real feeling in the youth"s confession that Leonora, more and more deeply moved, unconsciously drew closer to him, almost grazing him as they walked along; and she smiled slightly, as she repeated her previous phrase--a blend of motherly affection and compa.s.sion:
"Poor Rafael!... My poor dear boy!"
They had reached the gate to the orchard. The walk inside was deserted.
In the little square some hens were scratching about.
Overwhelmed by the strain of that confession, in which he had vented the anguish and dreams of many months, Rafael leaned against the trunk of an old orange-tree. Leonora stood in front of him, listening to his words, with head lowered, making marks on the ground with the tip of her red parasol.
Die, yes; he had often read in novels about people dying for love. And he had always laughed at the absurdity of such a thing. But he understood now. Many a night, tossing in his delirium, he had thought of ending his misery in some tragic manner. The violent, domineering blood of his father seethed in his veins. Once firmly convinced she could never be his, he would kill her, to keep her from belonging to anybody... and then stab himself! They would fall together to the blood-soaked ground, and lie there as on a bed of red damask, and he would kiss her cold lips, without fear of being disturbed; kiss her and kiss her, till the last breath of his life exhaled upon her livid mouth.
He seemed to be saying all that with deadly earnestness. The muscles of his strong face quivered, and his eyes--Moorish eyes--glowed like live coals. Leonora was looking at him pa.s.sionately now, as if a man were in front of her. She shuddered with a strange fascination as she pictured his barbarous dreams, fraught with blood and death. This was something new! This boy, when he saw that his love was vain, would not gloomily and prosaically slay himself as Macchia, the Italian poet, had done. He would die, but a.s.serting himself, killing the woman, destroying his idol when it would not harken to his entreaties!
And, pleasantly excited by Rafael"s tragic demeanor, she gave way to the thrill of it, letting herself be carried along by his anguished rapture.
He had taken her arm and was drawing her off the path, out among the low-hanging branches of the orange-trees.
For some time they were both silent. Leonora seemed to be drinking in the virile perfume of that savage pa.s.sionate adoration.
Rafael thought he had offended her, and was sorry for his violent words.
She must pardon him; he was beside himself, exasperated beyond bounds at her strange resistance. Leonora! Leonora! Why persist in spoiling a perfectly beautiful thing? He was not wholly a matter of indifference in her eyes. She did not dislike him. Otherwise she would not have let him be a friend and have permitted his frequent visits. Love?... Of course she did not love him--poor unhappy wretch that he was, incapable of inspiring pa.s.sion in a woman like her. But let her just accept him. He would teach her to love him in time, win her by the sheer beauty of his own tenderness and worship. His love alone, alas, was great enough for both of them and for all the famous lovers in history put together! He would be her slave; a carpet for her to tread underfoot; a dog, always at her feet, his eyes burning with the fire of eternal fidelity! She would finally learn to be fond of him, if not out of pa.s.sion, at least out of grat.i.tude and pity!
And as he spoke, he brought his face close to Leonora"s, looking for his own image in the depths of her green eyes; and he pressed her arm in a fever of pa.s.sion.
"Careful, Rafael.... That hurts! Let go, of me."
And as if suddenly sensing a danger in the full of a sweet dream, she shuddered and pulled herself free with a nervous violence.
Then, quite recovered from the intoxication into which she had been led by Rafael"s pa.s.sionate appeal, she began to speak calmly, composedly.
No; what he asked was impossible. Her fate was ordained; she did not want love any more.... Friendship had carried them a bit astray. It was her fault, but she would find a way to remedy that. If she had known him years before--perhaps! She might have learned to love him. He was more worthy of being loved than many of the men she had accepted. But he had come too late. Now she was content with just living. Besides, what a horror! Imagine a "grand pa.s.sion" in a petty environment such as they were in, a tiny world of gossip-mongers and evil tongues! Imagine having to hide like a criminal to express a n.o.ble emotion! No, when she loved, she loved in the open, with the sublime immodesty of the masterpiece that scandalizes b.u.mpkins with its naked beauty! How impossible it would be, finding herself nibbled at constantly by gossiping fools, quite beneath her contempt. She would feel the scorn and the indignation of a whole town about her. They would accuse her of leading an innocent boy astray, alienating him from his own mother. "No, Rafael; a thousand times no; I have a little conscience left! I"m not the irresponsible siren I used to be."
"But what about me?" cried the youth, seizing her arm again with a boyish petulance. "You think of yourself and of other people, but never of me. What am I going to do all along with my suffering?"
"Oh, you? Why ... you will forget," said Leonora gravely. "I have just realized this very moment that it is impossible for me to stay here any longer. We two must separate. I will leave before Spring is over; I"ll go ... I don"t know where, back to the world at any rate, take up my singing again, where I"ll not find men of just your kind. Time, and my absence, will attend to the curing of you."
Leonora winced before the flash of savage desire that gleamed in Rafael"s eyes. On her face she felt the ardent breath of lips that were seeking her own, and she heard him murmur with a stifled roar of pa.s.sion:
"No. You shall not go; I refuse to let you go!"
And she felt his strong arms close about her, swaying her from head to foot, in a clasp to which madness added strength. Her feet left the ground, and a brutal thrust threw her to her side at the foot of an orange-tree.
But, in a flash, the Valkyrie reappeared in Leonora. With a supreme effort, she struggled free from the encircling vise, sat up, threw Rafael violently to his back, got to her feet, and stamped a foot brutally and mercilessly down upon the young man"s chest, using her whole weight as though bent on crushing the very framework of his body.
Her face was an inspiring thing to look upon. She seemed to have gone mad! Her blond hair had fallen awry and was flecked with leaves and gra.s.s and bark. Her green eyes flashed with metallic glints, like daggers. Her lips were pale from emotion. And in that wild posture, whether through force of habit, or the suggestiveness of the effort she had made, she raised her warcry--a piercing, savage "_Hojotoho!_" that rent the calm of the orchard, frightening the hens and sending them scampering off over the paths. Her parasol she brandished as if it were the lance of Wotan"s daughter, and several times she aimed it at Rafael"s eyes, as if she intended to spear him blind.
The youth seemed to have collapsed less from the violence of the struggle than from an overpowering sense of shame. He lay motionless on the ground, without protesting, and as if not caring ever to rise again--longing to die under the pressure of that foot which was so heavily weighing down upon him, taking away his breath.
Leonora regained her composure, and slowly stepped back. Rafael sat up, and reached for his hat.
It was a painful moment. They stood there cold, as if the sun had gone out and a glacial wind were blowing through the orchard.
Rafael kept his eyes to the ground, afraid to look up and meet her gaze, ashamed at the thought of his disordered clothes, which were soiled with dirt; humiliated at having been beaten and pummeled like a robber caught by a victim he had expected to find powerless.
He heard Leonora"s voice addressing him with the scornful "_tu_" a lady might use toward her lowest inferiors.
"Go!"
He raised his head and found Leonora looking at him, her eyes ablaze with anger and offended dignity.