A Virgin Heart (de Gourmont, 1921)/9

by Remy de Gourmont

 

CHAPTER IX

 

LUNCHEON passed agreeably for Rose. She was the centre of looks, desires and conversation. M. Lanfranc gallanted without bad taste. She would laugh and then, with sudden seriousness, accept the contact of some gesture of M. Hervart's, who was sitting next to her. Leonor confined himself to a few curt phrases, which were meant to sum up the more ingenuous remarks of his fellow guests. He had thought he could treat this girl with contempt, but her eyes, he found, excited him. By dint of trying to seem a superior being, he succeeded in looking like a thoroughly disagreeable one. Rose was frightened of him.

"How cold he is," she thought. "One could never talk or play with a man so sure of all his movements. He would always win."

Several times, with innocent unconsciousness, she looked at M. Hervart.

"How well I have chosen! Here is a man who is younger than he, nearer my own age, and yet each of his words and gestures brings me closer to Xavier. I feel that it will be always like that. Who can compete with him? Xavier, I love you."

She leaned forward to reach a jug and as she did so whispered full in M. Hervart's face.

"Xavier, I love you."

M. Hervart pretended to choke. His redness of face was put down to a cherry stone; Lanfranc gave vent to some feeble joking on the subject.

As luncheon was nearing its end, she said with a perverse frankness:

"M. Hervart, will you come with me and see if everything's all right down in the garden."

"I am having coffee served out of doors," Mme Des Boys explained.

Lanfranc expatiated on the beauties of this country custom.

As soon as they were hidden from view behind the shrubbery, Rose, without a word, took M. Hervart by the shoulders and offered him her lips. It was a long kiss. Xavier clasped the girl in his arms and with a passion in which there was much amorous art, drank in her soul.

When he lifted his head, he felt confused:

"I have been giving the kiss of a happy lover, when what was asked for was a betrothal kiss. What will she think of me?"

Rose was already looking at the rustic table. When M. Hervart rejoined her, she greeted him with the sweetest of smiles.

"Was that what she wanted then?" M. Hervart wondered.

"Rose," he said aloud, "I love you, I love you."

"I hope you do," she replied.

"Oh, how I should like to be alone with you now!"

"I wouldn't. I should be afraid."

This answer set M. Hervart thinking: "Does she know as much about it as all that? Is it an invitation?"

His thought lost itself in a tangle of vain desires. But for the very reason that the moment was not propitious, he let himself go among the most audacious fancies. His eyes wandered towards the dark wood, as though in search of some favourable retreat. He made movements which he never finished. Raising himself from his chair, he let himself fall back, fidgeted with an empty cup, searched vainly for a match to light his absent cigarette. The arrival of Leonor calmed him. His fate that day was to embark on futile discussions with this young man, and he accepted his destiny.

Everyone was once more assembled. The conversation was resumed on the tone it had kept up at luncheon; but Rose was dreaming, and M. Hervart had a headache. It was all so spiritless, despite the enticements of M. Lanfranc, that M. Des Boys lost no time in proposing a walk.

"If you want us," said Leonor, "to draw up a plan for the transformation of your property, you must show it to us in some detail. Is this wood to be a part of your projected park? And what's beyond it? Another estate, or meadows, or ploughed fields? What are the rights of way? Do you want a single avenue towards Couville? One could equally well have one joining the St. Martin road...."

"Do you intend to lay waste this wood?" asked Rose. "It's so beautiful and wild."

"My dear young lady," said Leonor, "I intend to do nothing; that is to say, I only intend to please you...."

"Do what my daughter wants," said M. Des Boys. "You're here for her sake."

"For her sake," Mme Des Boys repeated.

"Oh, well," said Leonor, "we shall get on very well then."

"So I hope," said Rose.

"I am at your orders," said Leonor.

"Come on then," said Rose.

With these words she got up, throwing M. Hervart a look which was understood. But as M. Hervart rose to his feet, Mme Des Boys approached him:

"I have something very interesting to tell you."

M. Hervart had to let Rose and Leonor plunge alone into the wood in which he had, during these last few days, experienced such delightful emotions. Mme Des Boys took him into the garden.

"I have a question to ask you," she said.

"First of all, is architecture a serious profession?"

"Very," said M. Hervart.

"But do people make really a lot of money at it?"

"Lanfranc, who was a beggar when I first knew him, is probably richer than you are today. Leonor will go even further, I should think, for he seems an intelligent fellow and knows a lot about his business."

"You're not speaking out of mere friendship for him?"

"Not at all. Far from it; to tell you the truth I'm not very fond of either of them."

"But they're thorough gentlemen and very good company."

"Certainly, Lanfranc especially."

"Isn't he amusing? His nephew is more severe, but I prefer it."

"So do I."

"I'm glad to see that you agree with me."

She continued after a moment's reflection. "He would be an excellent husband for Rose."

M. Hervart did not reply. He had grown pale and his heart had begun beating violently. His thoughts were in confusion; his head whirled.

"What do you think of the idea?" Mme Des Boys insisted.

He withheld his answer, for he knew that his voice would seem quite changed. He murmured, "Hum," or something of the sort, something that simply meant that he had heard the question.

But bit by bit he recovered. The happy idea came to him that Mme Des Boys was a nullity in the family and had little influence over her daughter.

"Nothing that she says has any importance. I'll agree with her."

"I entirely agree with you," he pronounced.

"My daughter's a curious creature," went on Mme Des Boys, "but your approbation will perhaps be enough to convince her. You have a great deal of influence over her."

"I?"

"She's very fond of you. It's obvious."

"I'm such an old friend," said M. Hervart courageously.

His cowardice made him blush.

"Why shouldn't I confess? Why not say, 'Yes, she does like me, and I like her, why not?' Isn't my desire evident? Can I go away, leave her, do without her?..." But to all these intimate questions M. Hervart did not dare to give a definite answer.

"What I should like is that the present moment should go on for ever...."

"They have hardly spoken to one another, and yet," Mme Des Boys continued, "I seem to see between them the beginnings of....what? ....how shall I put it?..."

"The beginnings of an understanding," prompted M. Hervart with ironic charity.

"Why not love? There's such a thing as love at first sight."

"Oh, Rose is much too well bred."

The silliness of this woman, so reasonable and natural, none the less, in her rôle of mother, exasperated M. Hervart even more than the insinuations to which he had been obliged to listen. Ceasing, not to hesitate, but to reflect, he said abruptly:

"I shall be very sorry to see her married."

Mme Des Boys pressed his hand:

"Dear friend! yes, it will make a big difference in our home."

She went on, after a moment's hesitation:

"Not a word about all this, dear Hervart; you understand. And now I think that the tete-a-tete has perhaps gone on long enough; it would be very nice of you if you'd go and join them."

M. Hervart, impatient though he was, made his way slowly through the meanders of the little copse. Like Panurge, he kept repeating to himself, "Marry her? or not marry her?"

His head was a clock in which a pendulum swung indefatigably. He sat down on the little bench where, for the first time, he had felt the girl's head coming gently to rest on his shoulder. He wanted to think.

"I must come to decision," he said to himself.

Leonor had noticed that, from the moment their walk had begun, Rose was on the alert at the slightest noise.

"She expects him. That means he'll come. So much the better. I care very little about this schoolgirl. We're alone now; no more compliments. I'm simply a landscape gardener at the orders of Mlle Rose Des Boys. What a name!..."

He looked at the girl.

"After all, the name isn't so ridiculous as one might think. She is so fresh, she looks so pure. How curious they are, these innocent beings who go through life with the grace of a flower blossoming by the wayside.... But let's get on with our job...."

"The taste of the day, mademoiselle, inclines towards the French style of garden. Some compromise, at least, is necessary between the sham naturalness of the English park and the rigidity of geometrical designs...."

"Tell me what your compromise is."

"But I don't know the ground yet."

"It isn't big, you know. In a quarter of an hour you will have an idea of the place as a whole."

Leonor continued his dissertation on the art of the garden for a little, but he was perfectly aware that he was not being listened to. Finally he said:

"Nature must obey man; but a reasonable man only asks of her that she should allow herself to be admired or to be loved. Those who wish to admire are inclined to impose certain sacrifices upon her. Those who love ask less and are content, provided they find an easy access to the sites that please them. But I should imagine that women demand more. They want nature to be tamer, they want to see her utterly conquered; they want landscapes in which you can see the mark of their power...."

"What a curious conversation," Rose said to herself. "Here's an architect who would get on my nerves if I had to pass my life in his company...."

This idea made her think more urgently of M. Hervart. She turned her head, questioning the narrow alleys where the sunlight filtered through in little drops.

"She's thinking of her dear Xavier," thought Leonor. "What subject can I think of to hold her attention? Obviously, my remarks have so far interested her very little."

A man, however cold he may voluntarily make himself, however self-controlled he may be by nature, is scarcely capable of going for a walk alone with a young woman without wishing to please. He is equally incapable of keeping his presence of mind sufficiently to be able to look at himself acting and not to make mistakes. But how can one please? Can it be done by rule, particularly with a young girl? Women are hardly capable of anything but total impressions. They do not distinguish, for instance, between cleverness and intelligence, between facility and real power, between real and apparent youthfulness. If one pleases them, one pleases in one's entirety, and as soon as one does please them, one becomes their sacred animal. Leonor had an inspiration. Instead of expounding his own ideas on gardens, he set to work to repeat, in different terms, what Rose had said that morning:

"What I have been expounding," he said, "doesn't seem to interest you much. But you see, I must do my job, which is to back up M. Lanfranc. Personally, I agree with you. If there are weak spots in your house, the nearest mason can put on the necessary plaster, stone and mortar. As for the garden and the wood, I should do nothing except make a few paths so that I might walk without fear of dew or brambles."

"Now you're being sensible. Very well then, I shall tell my father that I shall make arrangements with you alone. You will come back here and we will do nothing, almost nothing."

"I shall come back with pleasure and I shall do nothing; but if I have not made you dislike me, I shall consider that I have done a great deal."

"But I don't dislike you. When people agree with me, I never dislike them."

"But how can people fail to agree with you, when you say such sensible things?"

"Oh, that's very easy. M. Hervart doesn't dispense with disagreement. He contradicts me, laughs at me."

"Good," thought Leonor, "she's in love with Hervart; then she likes being contradicted and even laughed at a little. Or perhaps she's lying, so as to make me believe that Hervart is indifferent to her. Let's try and get a rise."

"At his age that sort of thing is permissible."

"That's why I don't get cross."

"And besides, he's very nice."

"Oh, so nice; I'm very fond of him."

"It doesn't take," though Leonor. "Hervart, to her, is a god and we might go on talking till to-morrow without her understanding a single one of my insinuations or ironies."

He went on nevertheless, picking out all the spiteful things that can be said with politeness.

"Old bachelors often have manias..."

"That's what I often tell him. For instance, his taste for insects... But it amuses him so."

"She's invulnerable," said Leonor to himself.

"And then he knows life. He has lived so much."

"That's true. Sometimes, when he's speaking to me, I feel as though a whole world were opening before me."

"He knows all there is to be known, the arts and the sciences, friendship and love, men, women.... He's seen a lot of them and of every variety."

This time it was Rose who paused a moment to reflect, then:

"That's why I have such immense confidence in him. It's a real happiness for me that he should come and spend his holidays here. I have learnt more in these few weeks than in all the other years of my life."

Leonor looked at Rose. He felt a powerful emotion, for to be loved like this seemed to him the height of felicity. He had never believed that it was possible to inspire a young girl with such ingenuous confidence. And how frank she was! What a divine simplicity!

"How does one make oneself so much loved? What's his secret? Ah, if only I dared ask more! But now, I don't even want to try and violate an intimacy, so charming to contemplate. I am looking at happiness, and it's such a rare sight."

He glanced at Rose once more.

"And with all that she's very pretty. How graceful she is under this aspect of wildness! What suppleness of form! Everything, down to her complexion, gilded and freckled, like an apple, by the sun, looks lovely in these country surroundings. How well a wife like this would suit me; for I belong to this country and am destined to live here. 'Why couldn't Hervart have stayed among his Parisian women?"

"He must be very fond of you," he went on, "and I envy his happiness in being allowed to be your friend. I shall come back, since you so desire, but I would rather not come back."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to displease you."

"But it won't displease me; far from it. Do explain."

"If I come back, perhaps I shan't have the strength of mind not to grow fond of you, and that will make you angry."

"But why? How odd you are! Make yourself a friend of the house. I shall be very pleased."

"But then I shan't be able to like you as you like M. Hervart."

"Oh! I don't think that would be possible."

"And you won't like me as you like him."

She broke into such ingenuous laughter that Leonor assured himself that she had not understood anything of his insinuations. However, he was wrong, and her laughter proved it. She had laughed just because the idea had suddenly come to her that another man might have played Xavier's part in what had happened. The idea seemed to her comic and she had laughed. But the idea had come, and that was a great point.

It was such a great point that in her turn she looked at Leonor, and this time she did not laugh; but she had no time to make any comparison, for at the same moment she pricked up her ears and said, "There he is."

M. Hervart did not arrive till quite an appreciable time had passed, and Leonor said to himself:

"She scents her lover as a pointer scents the game. Love is extraordinary."

He abandoned himself to reflection, astonished at having learnt so many things in half an hour's walk with a young and simple-hearted girl.

Rose was staring with all her eyes in the direction from which the sound of rustling leaves had come. Leonor stooped down behind her and kissed the hem of her skirt.