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Sacred and Profane Love: A Novel in Three Episodes, a novel by Arnold Bennett |
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Part 3. The Victory - Chapter 2 |
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_ PART III. THE VICTORY. CHAPTER II I should have left then, though I had a wish not to leave. But I was prevented from going by the fear of descending those sinister stairs alone, and the necessity of calling aloud to the concierge in order to get out through the main door, and the possible difficulties in finding a cab in that region at that hour. I knew that I could not have borne to walk even to the end of the street unprotected. So I stayed where I was, seated in a chair near the window of the larger room, saturating myself in the vague and heavy flood of sadness that enwraps the fretful, passionate city in the night--the night when the commonest noises seem to carry some mystic message to the listening soul, the night when truth walks abroad naked and whispers her secrets. A gas-lamp threw its radiance on the ceiling in bars through the slits of the window-shutters, and then, far in the middle wilderness of the night, the lamp was extinguished by a careful municipality, and I was left in utter darkness. Long since the candles had burnt away. I grew silly and sentimental, and pictured the city in feverish sleep, gaining with difficulty inadequate strength for the morrow--as if the city had not been living this life for centuries and did not know exactly what it was about! And then, sure as I had been that I could not sleep, I woke up, and I could see the outline of the piano. Dawn had begun. And not a sound disturbed the street, and not a sound came from Diaz' bedroom. As of old, he slept with the tranquillity of a child. And after a time I could see the dust on the piano and on the polished floor under the table. The night had passed, and it appeared to be almost a miracle that the night had passed, and that I had lived through it and was much the same Carlotta still. I gently opened the window and pushed back the shutters. A young woman, tall, with a superb bust, clothed in blue, was sweeping the footpath in long, dignified strokes of a broom. She went slowly from my ken. Nothing could have been more prosaic, more sane, more astringent. And yet only a few hours--and it had been night, strange, voluptuous night! And even now a thousand thousand pillows were warm and crushed under their burden of unconscious dreaming souls. But that tall woman must go to bed in day, and rise to meet the first wind of the morning, and perhaps never have known the sweet poison of the night. I sank back into my chair.... There was a sharp, decisive sound of a key in the lock of the entrance-door. I jumped up, fully awake, with beating heart and blushing face. Someone was invading the flat. Someone would catch me there. Of course it was his servant. I had entirely forgotten her. We met in the little passage. She was a stout creature and appeared to fill the flat. She did not seem very surprised at the sight of me, and she eyed me with the frigid disdain of one who conforms to a certain code for one who does not conform to it. She sat in judgment on my well-hung skirt and the rings on my fingers and the wickedness in my breast, and condemned me to everlasting obloquy. 'Madame is going?' she asked coldly, holding open the door. 'No, madame,' I said. 'Are you the _femme de menage_ of monsieur?' 'Yes, madame.' 'Monsieur is ill,' I said, deciding swiftly what to do. 'He does not wish to be disturbed. He would like you to return at two o'clock.' Long before two I should have departed. 'Monsieur knows well that I have another _menage_ from twelve to two,' protested the woman. 'Three o'clock, then,' I said. _Bien_, madame,' said she, and, producing the contents of a reticule: 'Here are the bread, the butter, the milk, and the newspaper, madame.' 'Thank you, madame.' I took the things, and she left, and I shut the door and bolted it. In anticipation, the circumstances of such an encounter would have caused me infinite trouble of spirit. 'But after all it was not so very dreadful,' I thought, as I fastened the door. 'Do I care for his _femme de menage_?' The great door of the house would be open now, and the stairs no longer affrighting, and I might slip unobserved away. But I could not bring myself to leave until I had spoken with Diaz, and I would not wake him. It was nearly noon when he stirred. I heard his movements, and a slight moaning sigh, and he called me. 'Are you there, Magda?' How feeble and appealing his voice! For answer I stepped into his bedroom. The eye that has learned to look life full in the face without a quiver of the lid should find nothing repulsive. Everything that is is the ordered and calculable result of environment. Nothing can be abhorrent, nothing blameworthy, nothing contrary to nature. Can we exceed nature? In the presence of the primeval and ever-continuing forces of nature, can we maintain our fantastic conceptions of sin and of justice? We are, and that is all we should dare to say. And yet, when I saw Diaz stretched on that wretched bed my first movement was one of physical disgust. He had not shaved for several days. His hair was like a doormat. His face was unclean and puffed; his lips full and cracked; his eyes all discoloured. If aught can be vile, he was vile. If aught can be obscene, he was obscene. His limbs twitched; his features were full of woe and desolation and abasement. He looked at me heavily, mournfully. 'Diaz, Diaz!' said my soul. 'Have you come to this?' A great and overmastering pity seized me, and I went to him, and laid my hand gently on his. He was so nervous and tremulous that he drew away his hand as if I had burnt it. 'Oh, Magda,' he murmured, 'my head! There was a piece of hot brick in my mouth, and I tried to take it out. But it was my tongue. Can I have some tea? Will you give me some cold water first?' Strange that the frank and simple way in which he accepted my presence there, and assumed my willingness to serve him, filled me with a new joy! He said nothing of the night. I think that Diaz was one of the few men who are strong enough never to regret the past. If he was melancholy, it was merely because he suffered bodily in the present. I gave him water, and he thanked me. 'Now I will make some tea,' I said. And I went into the tiny kitchen and looked around, lifting my skirts. 'Can you find the things?' he called out. 'Yes,' I said. 'What's all that splashing?' he inquired. 'I'm washing a saucepan,' I said. 'I never have my meals here,' he called. 'Only tea. There are two taps to the gas-stove--one a little way up the chimney.' Yes, I was joyous, actively so. I brought the tea to the bedroom with a glad smile. I had put two cups on the tray, which I placed on the night-table; and there were some biscuits. I sat at the foot of the bed while we drank. And the umbrella, unperceived by Diaz, lay with its handle on a pillow, ludicrous and yet accusing. 'You are an angel,' said Diaz. 'Don't call me that,' I protested. 'Why not?' 'Because I wish it,' I said. 'Angel' was Ispenlove's word. 'Then, what shall I call you?' 'My name is Carlotta Peel,' I said. 'Not Magdalen at all.' It was astounding, incredible, that he should be learning my name then for the first time. 'I shall always call you Magda,' he responded. 'And now I must go,' I stated, when I had explained to him about the servant. 'But you'll come back?' he cried. No question of his coming to me! I must come to him! 'To a place like this?' I demanded. Unthinkingly I put into my voice some of the distaste I felt for his deplorable apartments, and he was genuinely hurt. I believe that in all honesty he deemed his apartments to be quite adequate and befitting. His sensibilities had been so dulled. He threw up his head. 'Of course,' he said, 'if you--' 'No, no!' I stopped him quickly. 'I will come here. I was only teasing you. Let me see. I'll come back at four, just to see how you are. Won't you get up in the meantime?' He smiled, placated. 'I may do,' he said. 'I'll try to. But in case I don't, will you take my key? Where did you put it last night?' 'I have it,' I said. He summoned me to him just as I was opening the door. 'Magda!' 'What is it?' I returned. 'You are magnificent,' he replied, with charming, impulsive eagerness, his eyes resting upon me long. He was the old Diaz again. 'I can't thank you. But when you come back I shall play to you.' I smiled. 'Till four o'clock,' I said. 'Magda,' he called again, just as I was leaving, 'bring one of your books with you, will you?' I hesitated, with my hand on the door. When I gave him my name he had made no sign that it conveyed to him anything out of the ordinary. That was exactly like Diaz. 'Have you read any of them?' I asked loudly, without moving from the door. 'No,' he answered. 'But I have heard of them.' 'Really!' I said, keeping my tone free from irony. 'Well, I will not bring you one of my books.' 'Why not?' I looked hard at the door in front of me. 'For you I will be nothing but a woman,' I said. And I fled down the stairs and past the concierge swiftly into the street, as anxious as a thief to escape notice. I got a fiacre at once, and drove away. I would not analyze my heart. I could not. I could but savour the joy, sweet and fresh, that welled up in it as from some secret source. I was so excited that I observed nothing outside myself, and when the cab stopped in front of my hotel, it seemed to me that the journey had occupied scarcely a few seconds. Do you imagine I was saddened by the painful spectacle of Diaz' collapse in life? No! I only knew that he needed sympathy, and that I could give it to him with both hands. I could give, give! And the last thing that the egotist in me told me before it expired was that I was worthy to give. My longing to assuage the lot of Diaz became almost an anguish. _ |
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