The Arm and the Darkness, Page 4

  Arsène was more and more amused and full of curiosity. His cold and trembling fingers fumbled with the purse. Then he paused, and looked up at the girl, who waited, her hands folded calmly before her. He saw that her blue eyes were full of stern bitterness.

  “My grandfather,” she said, coldly, “would ask you for nothing. He would be stricken to know of my conversation with you. But my grandfather is a gentle old child, and he must be protected, from you, and from himself. That is clear, Monsieur?”

  She opened the purse, and poured the golden coins over his fingers. Her smooth pale cheek was flushed now. Arsène laughed, and his laugh was hardly a murmur, weak and struggling.

  He whispered, with mocking irony: “Mademoiselle, you are too good. I am not ungrateful, however. I recognize in you a lady of excellent sense. Take all of this money, and do with it as you wish. I shall ask no accounting.”

  If he thought to goad her, he failed. She picked up the coins and the purse, and calmly deposited them in the pocket of her skirt. Then, briskly, she shook up the pillow under him, holding up his head firmly in her left hand. He felt her young strength. She ran her hands under his body without embarrassment, smoothing the sheet, and pulling the tattered quilts into place. Then she went into the kitchen, returned with a bowl of soup. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and put the bowl to his lips, again lifting his head in the hollow of her arm.

  He looked up into her stern young face, with its firm pink lips and the blue eyes, which were so deeply and beautifully set in large deep sockets. Her expression was stern and repressed.

  But he would not drink for a moment. He smiled up at her, and shook his head.

  “No, Mademoiselle, I cannot drink with such a face bent over me. Parbleu! Such a face would give a well man a fever.”

  She looked down at him with young hard exasperation, and pressed the bowl to his lips. “Monsieur,” she said, sternly, “it is nearly six o’clock. I am very late. You will please drink, and save me displeasure from my lady.” She added: “That is the least you can do for me.”

  He drank, obediently, with an exaggerated air of meekness. Once or twice he choked, for she poured too hastily, as though wishing to be rid of him. Her eyes looked not at him, but at the lengthening beam of sunlight on the stone floor.

  The soup was hot and thin, tasting of mutton and onions. He felt strength returning to him. She laid his head back on the pillow, not too gently. She stood up.

  “I shall buy good wine for you, tonight, better wine than we have given you before,” she said, ironically. “And there will be white bread, and butter, and perhaps a rabbit from the market.”

  She went into the kitchen again, returned with an empty bowl, some slices of cut black bread, and a jug of wine. She poured the wine into the bowl.

  “Not the fare to which you are doubtless accustomed, Monsieur. But it will have to serve until I return.”

  She caught up a black cloak from the foot of the bed, threw it over her shoulders. He lifted his hand, feebly.

  “May I ask,” he said, in his weak voice, “why you have done all this for me, Mademoiselle, when it is so evident that it is done unwillingly?”

  She had reached the doorway between the two rooms, and there paused, looked back at him over her shoulder. Her face expressed both sadness and scorn.

  “There is no thanks to me, Monsieur. I despise what you are, and have no heart for you. It is to my grandfather that you must give your gratitude, for I obey him in everything, though he is an old child, and defenseless.”

  She left him then, but she heard his faint sick laughter, as though he were greatly amused. Her face flushed, and she muttered something as she closed the door behind her, and locked it.

  He must have slept, for when he awoke the bedchamber was in total darkness, and the room beyond it was flooded with a gray dim light. His senses more acute, now, he could discern the acrid odor of dust. The silence pressed against his ears in mournful insistence.

  But he was more conscious of urgently returning strength, and was able to sop pieces of bread in the bitter wine and eat them. A vile concoction, but he was surprised at his own voracious enjoyment. These poor people had given him of their best. This, then, was their best, this dreadful habitation, this miserable starveling food.

  He lay back on his musty pillow, meditating. It came to him, with a childlike amazement, that millions of Frenchmen lived like this, millions of anonymous souls who knew nothing of the Tuileries and the Louvre, of the Court and the theatre, of ball-rooms and châteaus, of perfumes and jewels and gilded coaches and great gardens cool and indigo under the sun. They knew nothing but guttered streets, filth, starvation, pain and disease. But surely he must have known! He had not been that completely stupid.

  Yes, I have known, he thought, with wonder, yet I did not know. It was because I did not care. To me, as to many others, France meant the Court, the intrigues of scented rogues and cavaliers and statesmen and Jesuits, country estates and laughter in candle lighted midnight, exciting wars, gallantry, laces and women. These millions of wretches, dumb and driven, silent and oppressed, were not France. They were not human beings. They lived only to serve us, seigneurs and priests, rich rascals and smooth liars. They carried no swords, made no legs, were no connoisseurs of excellent wine, engaged in no artful plots, were authorities on no fashion, conspired in no wars, wore neither lace nor lacquered boots, read no foul novels nor made gay epigrams. In short, they existed only as dark unmoving sea upon which floated our carved barques and tinted sails. A dark unmoving sea! Nay, perhaps a dark motionless chaos waiting for the lightning!

  Even as a Huguenot, vehement, contemptuous and violent, he had not thought of the masses of the French people. Like all his class, his caste, the people had not existed. The people who were France.

  Cardinal, le Duc de Richelieu, had been a frequent visitor to his re-established father in his hotel on the Champs-Elysées. Arsène remembered that subtle and satanic countenance, with the eyes that seemed both supernaturally fiery and inhumanly cold. The man fascinated him, filled him with wild but cunning hatred, and he had watched his father’s servility, his nervous ingratiating smiles, with scorn and detestation. He, Arsène, had sat in smiling and courteous silence, and had listened. He knew that Monsieur the Cardinal suspected and disliked him. Worse, he knew that the Cardinal held him negligible, a young man of crude young passions, not to be taken seriously. (But how much did Monsieur the Cardinal know of him?)

  There had been some discussion, but Arsène could not remember its elegant careless phrases. But he did remember one utterance from the Cardinal:

  “Men do not make castes. Mankind tends to sink and rise to certain strata by the force of inherent endowment, given by the mysterious will of God.”

  Unwillingly, Arsène had acknowledged to himself the acuteness of his observation. Now, as he lay in Cecile’s bed, he was enraged by his former simplicity. He was amazed by his juvenility. In one phrase, the Cardinal had disposed of millions of lightless and hopeless people, had discounted the dark and moveless chaos, had ignored the faint sound of the distant earthquake. (But he did not know then how much of this new rage was rooted in his hatred and fear of the Cardinal.) He was shaken by new revelations. His Protestantism had been for himself and others like him, a materialistic creed springing not from passionate indignation, but from hatred of the wily and the subtle, the superstitious and the absurd. In its essence, it was revolt against his foolish father, and a loathing for lies. Moreover, it had become, for him, an exclusive doctrine, not concerned with religion or dogma, but a social doctrine pertaining only to himself and others of his kind. It was a way of life, suited to his temperament. It was a clean, hard emancipation from sickly elegance and intrigue.

  Now, dimly (and not for a long time to become clear and powerful), he saw it as a liberation for all men, a liberation from slavery and oppression, from suffering and exploitation, from serfdom and starvation and cruelty. It was the coming-of-age of countless m
ultitudes, bent under whips, sightless and tormented.

  For the first time in his life he felt the stirrings of universal compassion, of impersonal anger and indignation. His was a temperament shrewd, and by turns, cold and violent, reckless and cautious, loving adventure for its own sake, an adventurousness stemming from vengefulness. He remembered, with some humiliation, that when he had thought of the people at all, it had been with a contempt and loathing as great as the Cardinal’s and the Jesuits’. So had the German princes, embracing Protestantism, felt. Their Protestantism had not sprung from indignation at the misery of the people. It had come from their temperamental dislike for restriction and supervision and commands for obedience, and forced tribute to Rome. It was a personal revolt, and had nothing at all to do with compassion for their serfs and the dumb anguish of their people. It was the revolt of simple and violent Teutonic minds, disgusted with black intrigue and the wiliness of the Latins, against which their childlike simplicity and crudeness had no defenses; The rebellion of great children, who hated French and Italian diplomacy, so subtle and adult, which they could not understand, and, not understanding, could only distrust and fear,

  His mind, sharpened by its recent fever, and now ascendent because of the weakness of his strong body, rose up like a wind full of passionate and fiery shapes. His was not the philosophical or meditative mind. Rather it had been a quick and energetic mind, ebullient and sensual, yet calculating and hard. It had never known any spirituality, any poesy or gentleness and intuition. Robust and active, it had delighted in movement and danger. (But under it, as yet unknown to himself, there had been the tides of justice and logic and disgust for falsehood.) He had despised almost everything, yet his life had been full of the gusts of his hearty laughter, and his lustfulness. Kind yet arrogant, selfish yet full of the potentialities for love, egotistic, yet humorous, greedy, yet at times abnormally generous and openhanded, he had found existence colorful and exciting, full of friends and gay companionship. Among those associated with him in a dangerous plotting, were men of brilliant eyes and noble words and self-sacrifice. Only a few there were, and he had felt only disdain and humor for them. A turn of the wheel, and they would have been enthusiastic Jesuits, he was certain. His nature made him distrust all fanatics, whether they were good or evil.

  Now he felt in himself the first vague but gigantic shadows of conscience, pity and impersonal fury. They were only shadows, however, and like shadows, the bright sharp sun of reality might still disperse them. He was conscious that his heart was beating rapidly, and his weakness increasing as his mind strengthened and stood astride his emaciated body.

  He thought of François Grandjean and Cecile. He was still full of simplicity, and in his new enthusiasm he fatuously thought that all the people were like these. His was a nature so emotional that impersonal stability and calmness were to be a lesson hardly learned. He had prided himself on a certain cynical detachment, and it would have humiliated him to have discovered that he really did not possess this detachment.

  The rooms were very dark now. He heard the faint grating of a key, and saw a small bent shadow enter the outer chamber. There was something cautious and silent about its movement, and he waited, curiously. He heard the striking of flint against steel, then the light of a candle bloomed suddenly in the dusk. He saw that his visitor was a very small, very old priest, bowed and shuffling. Faintly, he remembered having seen this priest in his fever, and having heard his soft voice.

  Carrying the candle, the old abbé approached the bedchamber. In the light, which he held high and timidly, his face was vividly illuminated. Arsène saw its ancient sad gentleness, its diffidence and childlikeness. There were the brown sunken eyes, the large Roman nose, the sweet tired mouth, all set in a gaunt and cavernous face like a death’s-head. His sparse hair was silvery white, his garments coarse and patched. Yet, there was an heroic quality about him, steadfast and quiet.

  But Arsène observed him with a rising of the loathing he felt for all priests, a loathing which was actually physical as at the approach of some noisome and disgusting creature, full of venom and noxiousness. He waited in silence while the abbé put the candle down upon a bare table near the bed. The old man approached the bed, bent over Arsène anxiously. And Arsène stared back at him, with his cold disgust sharp in his eyes, and his old contempt and aversion.

  The abbé smiled. “Ah,” he murmured, “we are much better today. We are conscious. That is well.”

  He stretched out his hand to feel the young man’s forehead, but Arsène jerked his head aside, wincing. The abbé stood there, stricken immobile, his hand still outstretched. Then, after a moment, he dropped his hand. His gentle smile was a trifle fixed, as though he were bewildered.

  “I am well,” said Arsène, in his hoarse, weak voice. (The foul and wily old priest, the stinking old vulture in carrion-clothes!)

  “Yes,” said the abbé, softly, “you are well. And this is because of the devotion and sleeplessness of your friends, and the goodness of God. There were hours when we could do nothing but pray, pray for a nameless and dying man.” He paused, and smiled as though slightly ashamed: “I am afraid, though, that I was more concerned with the danger to my dear friends, than with you, Monsieur.”

  Arsène was silent. His eyes glowed contemptuously in the candlelight.

  The abbé sat down on a bench, and studied the young man anxiously. Arsène forced his voice to reach his lips, and he said, coldly: “Why are you here?”

  The abbé sighed. “It is a promise I made to my friends, that after Vespers I would sit with you until one of them returned.”

  “That is not necessary,” said Arsène, turning away his head.

  The old man said nothing. Arsène was suddenly conscious of thirst. As if he had spoken, the abbé rose, went into the kitchen, and returned with a cup of cold water, which he held to Arsène’s lips. Arsène drank. He glanced up over the rim of the cup, and was startled at the intense sweetness of the other’s understanding smile. His antagonism, his loathing, subsided, involuntarily.

  “You must sleep, my child,” said the abbé. And Arsène slept.

  CHAPTER V

  Arsène dreamt that he was riding gaily in the rosy morning in the gardens of the Bois. Everything was still, crystal sharp and bright, and there was no one but he abroad. He saw the long flung shadows of the sparkling trees, heard the poignantly sweet murmurings of the birds. He felt the soft morning wind in his face, heavy with the odor of thousands of flowers. He thought to himself: I have never been so happy. But what caused his happiness, he did not know.

  His horse cantered merrily along the silent, sun-fretted path. A branch brushed his plumed hat. He removed that hat, let the wind blow through his hair. He began to sing, aware of his youth and his joy. The blue sky, through the trees, glowed in turquoise squares and diamonds, melting into each other. How fresh and pure was the morning! This seemed a world apart from the corrupt Court, the dead scent of powder and fetid perfumes, the meaningless mirth and the evil eyes, the intrigues and the moribund elegance. It was a world of life, and the world of corpse-like postures and silken attitudinizing had existence only in death and night. “I am free,” he cried, aloud, and the birds and the soft laughing wind murmured in reply: “Free! Free!”

  But, as if the words held in themselves a spell, a frightful enchantment, the light fled from the land, the light darkened from the trees, the flowers, blinding and joyful in their color, lost all their tints and became gray as ashes. The fountains he had heard in the distance, singing and glittering as they fell into their marble bowls, suddenly became the menacing roar of cataracts of doom, loud and thunderous in the near distance. Now the wind blew cold as if roaring over frozen seas. The air, a moment ago so warm and silken, became icily bitter, with a smell in it as if it had come from burned cities. He felt the ground tremble under him; the trees bent, screamed, and leaves, suddenly withered and blighted, fell from the branches and spun in dry stinging whirlpools all about him. Dust
rose, twisted into ropes of gray smoke, choked him. Everything was uproar, thunder, quaking, groaning and desolation. An enormous fear leapt into his heart; he looked about him in terror, expecting some awful destruction to leap upon him. He saw the aisles of the trees, shaken, and torn, bare as bones, and the long grass ran furiously before the gale.

  He looked about, with dread, for the coming of murderous enemies. But he was all alone. And as he realized this, that no one else but he was in the midst of this horror of destruction and death and ruin, he was the more terrified. His horse stood under him, trembling, his head bowed.

  And then, he heard a muttering, which was part of the whirlwind. It was some moments before he discerned that the muttering was that of thousands of hoarse voices, rising and falling, crying and shouting, threatening and dolorous. “Free!” they screamed. “Free! Free!” A multitude of voices, a world of cries, springing up from the bowels of the earth, rushing through the twisting aisles of the trees, leaping downwards from the sky, echoing back from space, blowing in the wind and shrieking through the fountains and the thunder. Then Arsène could hear nothing but those voices, and his terror became like death in his body.

  Arsène felt a tremendous shaking under and about him, as though the universe shuddered on its pillars and in its orbits. The air was darkening; it had become dusky and choking, as though the earth was rolling in smoke. “Free!” cried the countless voices, and now there was a stern and deadly sound in them, inexorable and appalling. A universe of voices, sweeping implacably through sky and through the world. Now the black sky reddened, as if reflecting the light of a hundred flaming cities, and the whirlwind increased and there was a hissing quality in it.

  “Doom!” thought Arsène, and waited for annihilation. The sky, scarlet with flames, brightened savagely above him, in the abysmal blackness of the night.